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Jacob Zhimomi, second from left, and others seen here during the launch of the Swachhata Hi Seva, on Wednesday in the deputy commissioner’s conference hall in Kohima. (EM Images)[/caption]
Our Correspondent
Kohima, Sep.11 (EMN): Nagaland has launched a six-week long sanitation programme called the ‘Swachhata Hi Seva’ (Hindi for ‘Cleanliness is service’) on Wednesday in Kohima. The minister for PHED Jacob Zhimomi was the special guest of the event.
The Swachhata Hi Seva (SHS) campaign aims at fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi’s dream for a clean India by mobilising the masses and reinforcing a movement for sanitation .
In his short speech at the programme, Zhimoni highlighted the importance of sanitation and how it goes hand-in-hand with the development of the state. He urged every individual to work collectively towards a cleaner Nagaland. The minister urged also the department of Urban Development to work towards declaring the state an ‘open defecation free’ state at the earliest.
Delivering the keynote address at the event, Thangi Mannen, convener of Zero Waste Himalaya for Nagaland, said this year’s SHS theme was on plastic waste management taking into consideration the problem of single-use plastic.
The former government officer said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called upon the people to free India from single-use plastic and had sought step towards the objective.
Modi had iterated this stand in his recent Maan Ki Baat to the nation and on international forums, as recent as on September 9 during the 14th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP14 ). He had announced that India was taking steps to put an end to single-use plastic in the coming years.
Mannen informed that the SHS 2019 will run from September 11 to the 27th of October during which ‘large scale’ educational events and plastic waste collection activities would be undertaken.
During this period all the states and union territories will organise large scale citizen engagement activities to educate the people and mobilise the community through voluntary service, she said.
Activities like clean and green drives, cleanliness pledges, cleanliness rallies etc will all aim at plastic waste collection and disposal in three phases.
Phase I, September 11 to October 1, will be the preparatory and awareness-generation period. Phase II, October 2 (150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi), will be marked by mass voluntary work of collecting plastic waste. Phase III, October 3-27 will be marked by collection, segregation, transportation for recycling and disposal of waste, aiming at a plastic free Diwali.
There will be a daily update of the progress of the SHS from all districts, which will be uploaded on the government website.
The stated activities will require the participation of government departments and organisations in both the state and district levels, urban and rural areas; nongovernmental organisations, business communities, religious institutions, schools, and colleges etc. Directives will be issued by the government to all in concern to ensure active participation and involvement of all in taking the state toward a plastic-free community.
A specific list of activities that are to be undertaken has been issued by the government of India. It will be shared and disseminated by the departments to all the state administrative and departmental units. One of the instruction is that the states are to declare a ban on single-use plastics.
For Nagaland, the state’s government had on June 17 this year issued a notification banning all single-use plastic in the state.
The ban will be effective from September 18 2019, ahead of the October 2 deadline as envisaged and directed by the central government.
Mannen said that the SHS programme was not confined to the period from September 11 to the 27th of October 2019. ‘It is only the beginning of the process to achieve India’s commitment to eliminate all single-use plastics in the country by 2022 as announced by the prime minister last year on World Environment Day,’ she maintained.
To achieve this commitment, Mannen urged the people in general to do their bit in bringing about lifestyle changes, and to make conscious efforts in their choices everyday to reduce and refuse plastics as much as possible.
The SHS is about waste management in every household, social and religious institutions, festivities etc to ensure a better world for the future, Mannen said. She added that both the government and the public must work together to achieve the goal of making Nagaland a clean and green state.
“The principle of ‘my waste, my responsibility’ must be practiced by one and all so that a total of ‘zero waste’ society can be achieved,” Mannen said.
As a tribute to Gandhi’s ideals, the SHS is being observed annually since 2017, mobilising millions of people in learning about access to safe sanitation, toilet use, triggering behaviour change towards cleanliness, and voluntary contribution and services in public places.