Attitude change key to successful Clean India mission: Birender Singh

Union Rural Development Minister Birender Singh Monday called for an attitudinal change towards hygiene in India as well as an institutional revamp to ensure the Clean India Mission's success, as technological change alone was insufficient.

Addressing the India WASH Summit 2015 here, Singh said the solution to the problem of poor hygiene and sanitation in rural as well as urban India was "not only to introduce new technology" but also linked with the flexibility that all states must have in implementing the mission as well as the need to "ensure leadership capacities at all levels while enhancing the role of panchayati raj that could mobilise communities to implement the Clean India mission".

"Are all the technologies that we have for the solid-waste management actually technically feasible in the rural areas?" he asked, stressing the need to provide communities with technologies that are location-specific and feasible in the rural setting.

In view of the pollution and the receding water levels in the Ganga, Singh stressed the importance of regulating its tributaries in order to ensure a healthy water system of the ancient river.

"If you want to keep the Ganga clean, then there is a need to regulate the flow of the tributaries of Ganga. Half of the problem is resolved then. Lakhwara and Kisau dams are to be constructed on the upstream of (tributary) Yamuna which would regulate its flow," he said.

Describing sanitation as key to a healthy India, the minister stressed the need to develop a system for monitoring the progress of the mission. He noted the role of civil society is equally important and must also be promoted.

The three-day summit organised by WaterAid and the ministries of drinking water and sanitation and urban development, seeks to explore solutions to sanitation issues in India, and bring together thought leaders, the private sector, government officials and NGOs working in the field to make a clean India a reality by 2019.