The Ministry of Jal Shakti began ‘SUJALAM’, a ‘100 days campaign’ as part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ celebrations to create more and more ODF Plus villages by undertaking waste water management at village level particularly through creation of 1 million Soak-pits and also other Grey water management activities. The effort of campaign would be directed towards achieving the ODF plus status for villages across the country in an accelerated manner in a short time. The Campaign has started from today i.e. 25th August, 2021 and will continue to run for the next 100 days.

The campaign will not only build desired infrastructure i.e. soak pit for management of greywater in villages but will also aid in sustainable management of waterbodies. The disposal of waste water and clogging of waterbodies in the villages or on the outskirts of the villages remain one of the major problems. The Campaign would help in management of the wastewater and in turn would help to revive the waterbodies.

Furthermore, the campaign would boost the momentum of SBMG phase II activities through community participation and it will increase awareness about ODF-plus activities. Hence ensuring long term maintenance and sustainability of built infrastructure.

The Campaign would use the platform of awareness and behaviour change achieved during the first phase of the SBMG and provide focus for sustaining the same along with achieving the visual cleanliness by the way of SLW Management.

The key activities that will be organised in the villages under this campaign include:

• Organizing Community consultations, Khuli Baithaks and Gram Sabha meetings to analyze the current situation
• Pass resolution to maintain ODF sustainability and achieve needed number of soak pits to manage the grey water
• Develop a 100 days’ plan to undertake sustainability and soak pit construction related activities
• Construct requisite number of soak pits
• Retrofit toilets where needed through IEC and community mobilization and
• Ensure all newly emerging Households in the village have access to toilets.

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BY/AS