By Bibhudatta Sahu
Each time a city or tiny municipality performs properly on any parameters of city resilience and sustainable development, it facilitates the development and transformation of India into a contemporary nation. Recently, when a tiny unknown municipality, Vyasnagar, in the Jajpur district of Odisha, accomplished the Open Defecation Free ++ status (ODF plus plus), India also inched closer to its dreams and aspirations. After attaining the ODF status in 2018 and ODF++ status in 2021 from the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoUHA) below the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Vyasnagar has come to be one of the quickest moving Urban Local Body (ULB) for sustainable urban sanitation in the nation.
COVID-19, SDG 6 and Vyasnagar’s ODF ++ status
Vyasnagar’s covetable functionality in accomplishing the ODF++ status is specifically considerable, in particular in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world is nonetheless grappling with recurring waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has come to be even more urgent to address people’s fundamental wants, rectify basic weaknesses in our program, and move towards constructing a fairer and resilient world. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) has currently offered a blueprint to combat the urgent environmental, political, and financial challenges facing our world. In this regard, SDG 6, which focuses on “ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”, has come to be all the more vital. The SDG 6 assumes key significance simply because other objectives such as wellness, meals safety, and livelihood are closely related with a country’s potential to provide water and sanitation for all. Every step that brings us closer to these objectives is laudable. In this context, Vyasnagar’s ODF++ status and its other achievements in urban sanitation will inspire all other related municipalities in the nation.
SBM and Odisha Urban Sanitation Strategy 2017
In line with the objectives of SDG 6, India declared itself as Open Defecation Free (ODF) in October 2019. Soon right after, the Central government launched ODF+ and ODF++ below Phase II of SBM aimed towards right waste management. Taking a cue from the national policy atmosphere that began prioritizing the sanitation sector, in particular right after the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission, in 2017, Odisha also revised its ‘Odisha Urban Sanitation Strategy’ (OUSS) and Odisha Urban Sanitation Policy. Since then, the state government’s Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD) has made unprecedented strides in escalating access to person and neighborhood toilets. Odisha has offered equal priority to handling the Faecal Sludge generated out of its cities. The state has constructed Septage Treatment Plants (SeTP) in close to 50 ULB’s. Out of these, 34 SeTPs are transferred to Mission Shakti/Transgender SHGs for operating and upkeep. The state government has offered certain significance to active citizen and stakeholder participation to make its cities and towns clean, sanitized, guaranteeing excellent public wellness for all citizens.
Vyasnagar: Innovating and dreaming large
What tends to make the case of a tiny municipality like Vyasnagar unusually striking is its large aspirations and adoption of revolutionary options in urban sanitation. In Odisha, Vyasnagar is the 1st municipality to remediate current landfill web sites in the city into ecological parks making use of Bio-mining and processing legacy wastes. It is also the only municipality in the state that has channelled the sources to transform a 15-year-old dumpsite into an ecological park. The municipality has offered certain significance to the 3Rs (recycle, reuse, and lower) in the arranging method, considerably lowering the city’s waste. For the city’s beautification, sculptures and murals made of scrap material are placed at prominent areas. Vyasnagar has taken unprecedented measures in adopting innovation and the most effective obtainable technologies in Liquid waste management. The municipality utilizes the RENEU (restoration of Nallah with ecological units) technologies to treat storm water drains in an eco-friendly, price-successful and effective manner. Vyasnagar is the only municipality in Odisha applying this 1st-of-its-type all-natural way of treating drain water.
Vyasnagar has quickly achieved its sanitation and strong waste management objectives, such as the ODF++ status, by leveraging public participation and administrative will. Taking inspiration from the Indore model, Vyasnagar has also implemented decentralized projects that have strengthened neighborhood engagement and ensured the lengthy-term sustainability of initiatives. The complete strong waste management worth chain has been managed by way of the ladies collectives (SHGs) as Swachh Sathis. It has also streamlined the strong waste management worth chain by way of an revolutionary citizen engagement model making use of ICT-based technologies to monitor the complete program.
Further, in Vyasnagar, one hundred % of the toilets come below the ‘Best Urinals/Aspirational Category’. To guarantee the sustainability of current infrastructure, the municipality has completed the face-lifting of all public and neighborhood toilets. All the public and neighborhood toilets below Vyasnagar municipality are equipped with 24/7 water provide, electrical energy, incinerator, sanitary pad vending machines, water-saving technologies, ultra-contemporary fixtures and fittings.
Most importantly, the municipality has invested in the capacity constructing of its frontline workers and SHGs. For instance, it has collaborated with National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC) to conduct sanitation workers’ talent development coaching applications. Equally critical are the awareness campaigns initiated by the municipality to trigger behavioural transform by engaging the neighborhood. In this regard, the wall paintings have come to be an necessary medium in the city to convey ‘clean and green Vyasnagar’.
Vyasnagar’s ODF++ status is the outcome of the tireless efforts of its district administration, in particular the sanitation wing and operations and upkeep wing of the ULB, and the active and informed participation of its citizens. However, to make the progress permanent and realize a more holistic influence on sanitation, Vyasnagar ought to continue engaging the communities and adopting innovation wherever necessary. Moreover, Vyasnagar could also initiate and develop a collaboration network to assistance other related municipalities struggling with fewer sources and knowledge in urban sanitation.
(The author is an independent researcher graduated from TISS, Mumbai with more than 8+ years of working knowledge in the Government and Public Sector. The views expressed are individual and do not reflect the official position or policy of TheSpuzz Online.)