Source: Hueiyen News Service / SobhapatiSamom
Imphal, November 18 2008:
PRIME MINISTER Dr Manmohan Singh expressed the need to integrate Sanitation in the public health policy of the country for a healthy life while Dr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Minister of rural development said till 2008, India has achieved 57 percent total santitation and the government is target to cover the entire population by 2012 .
Dr Manmohan on the other hand while inaugurating the four day third South Asian conference on sanitation at the plenary hall of the Vigyan Bhavan here this evening also exhorted the need to have bare-foot engineers by incorporating the local youths in executing the santitation related activities in the rural areas so that it have it's own sustainibity.
Informing that the government has increased the budget for the rural sanitation programme of the country six times in the last five years to provide the sanitation facilities in the country,he said,"the sanitation should be in our development policy as well".
In making this fruitful,the role of the community leadership is also very important he added.
He however added that 2.6 billion people of the south east asian countries are not getting the sanitation facilities.
Dr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh,Minister of rural development of the country and his Pakistan,sri lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh and afganishtan were also present during the inauguration session of the conclave which have not less than 1100 delegates from these seven south asian counries.
The four day conclave on sanitation will have 16 brain storming session in presence of experts, community leaders,officials from the international ogrnaisations, government departments and media.
The first South Asian conference on sanitation was held at Bangladesh in 2003 while the second in Pakistan in 2006.Principal secretary of Manipur and in charge of the public health engineering P C Lamkunga, Chief Engineer PHE department Guru Aribam Joychandra, senior engineer R K Dilip, an executive engineer and few NGO leaders who are said to be recipient of Nirman Gram Puruskar Award also attending the conclave on sanitation.
According to a UNICEF report,sanitation facilities in South Asia has placed Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka above India.
Between 1990 and 2006, about 40 per cent of people in Pakistan gained access to sanitation facilities as compared to just 20 per cent in India.
The comparative data was released by the United Nations Children's Fund on the eve of the conference.