The Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation Sh. Bharatsinh Solanki informed Lok Sabha members in reply to question that to provide thrust to the rural sanitation programmer.
12th Five Year Plan outlay has been fixed at Rs. 37159 crore, which is 468% higher than the 11thFive Year Plan Outlay of Rs. 6540 crore.
The Ministry Drinking Water and Sanitation has not engaged any Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to work on rural sanitation and no funds have been released to them for the same.
However, as per Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) Guidelines, NGOs can assist Panchayati Raj Institution(PRIs) in Information, Education and Communication (IEC) and Capacity Building activities leading to demand generation, construction and use of sanitation facilities.
The objective of NBA is to achieve sustainable behavior change with provision of sanitary facilities in entire communities in a phased, saturation mode with “Nirmal Grams’ as outcomes. The new strategy is to transform rural India into ‘Nirmal Bharat’ by adopting community saturation approach. NBA goal is to achieve 100% access to sanitation for all rural households by 2022.
The Government has taken sufficient technical and financial measures to improve the quality of rural sanitation with enhancement in funding and technical support for construction of Individual household latrine, school and anganwadi toilets, Solid and Liquid Waste Management.
The provision of incentive for individual household latrine units has been widened to cover all APL households who are SC/ST, small and marginal farmer, landless labourer with homestead, physically challenged and women headed households along-with all BPL households.
Financial incentive for construction of toilets has been raised for all eligible beneficiaries to Rs. 4600/- under NBA. In addition, upto Rs. 5400/- is to be booked under the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA for construction of the toilet.
Under the NBA, assistance for Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) projects is available on the basis of total number of households in each Gram Panchayat (GP), subject to a maximum of Rs.7 lakh for a GP having up to 150 households, Rs. 12 lakh up to 300 households, Rs. 15 lakh up to 500 households and Rs. 20 lakh for GPs having more than 500 households. Additional cost requirement can be met with convergence of MGNREGS or from the State/GP funds.
Under NBA, technical assistance is also being provided through training to Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC) and PRI members, block and district functionaries, grass root functionaries in trades such as masonry work, brick-making, toilet pan making and plumbing etc, required for creation of sanitation facilities. Publications on technical options for on-site sanitation and SLWM have also been issued.
