Challenges to a Clean India by 2019: Panchayat leaders

New Delhi, 19 March (IANS) The target to make India a clean and hygienic country by 2019 is not unrealistic but the campaign suffers from vague guidelines and lack of funds, two panchayat leaders said on Thursday.

"The 2019 target of making India clean is not impossible but there are various challenges existing in the system like non-availability of funds, unclear guidelines and frequent changes in policies and guidelines," said Sushma Kusum, who is the sarpanch (village council head) of Jharkhand's Miral Purvi panchayat.

She called for focused and timely implementation of the instructions from the governing bodies at the apex level.

Three days ahead of the World Water Day on March 22, over 250 elected representatives of panchayati raj institutions and urban local bodies converged here to deliberate on the role of the local governing bodies in ensuring peoples' right to water and sanitation in tune with the "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan".

Organised by the Right to Sanitation (RtS) Campaign in India, its two-day all-India convention which began on Thursday seeks to highlight the urgent need of addressing the issue of water and that of open defecation in order for the mission to be effective on the ground.

"We have motivated as well as educated villagers to construct toilets in their houses but the subsidy payments are not provided in time" and that stalls the work and discourages people, said sarpanch B. Rambabu, who hails from Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district.

"We have the capability to make our village open-defecation free within two to three months but the budget allocation is either insufficient or not available on time," he added.

Recorded in the form of a charter, the outcome of the deliberations at the convention will be presented to the drinking water and sanitation ministry, the urban development ministry and the women and child development ministry.

The ministries may integrate the inputs into the various elements of addressing the issue of water and sanitation, said a statement by the Right to Sanitation Campaign, a common platform for over 150 organisations working to ensure sanitation as a constitutional right.