To inculcate a sense of ownership among villagers for their villages so that they participate willingly in its development, the Kallakurichi District Collector launched the ‘Namma Ooru Super’ campaign, a statewide initiative of the Tamil Nadu government, at Sadayampattu village in Chinasalem Taluk. Although the campaign was launched on 15August to mark the completion of 75years of Independence, it was actually rolled out from 20 August and will be on ground till 2 October.
Speaking to Indian Masterminds, District Collector of KallaKurichi, Sravan Kumar Jatavath shared details about the campaign.
NAMMA OORU SUPER
The campaign Namma Ooru Super means making the villages superb. It’s a campaign which is aiming at holistic development of the village especially concentrating on basic amenities like cleanliness, garbage disposal, which includes segregation of waste in proper manner, sanitation, clean drinking water, water supply, playground and other facilities for children.
The campaign also aims at inculcating a sense of ownership among the villagers so that the development is sustainable and they will be able to manage their own village in all aspects.
The programme involves all departments. The administration is not only including cleanliness and sanitation, they have also integrated afforestation drive along with this.
“The other components also include rain water harvesting. So, all the rainwater is harvested so that ground water recharge takes place. Ultimately, it’s a campaign involving everyone in the village, youngsters, students, government officials from all departments, so as to make it a clean village altogether,” Mr. Jatavath told Indian Masterminds.
He also said that it’s a participatory approach, wherein they are encouraging everyone to be a part of it. They have initiated this programme in a targeted manner and plans to achieve it within a stipulated time, before Oct 2. All departments, including panchayati raj, agriculture, sanitation, health and water supply are into this campaign to make it a big success.
The 45-days campaign is also aiming to bring about an attitudinal shift among the villagers. “It’s not like we are withdrawing from this campaign after October 2. It will be in process to keep the villages clean and green forever,” Mr. Jatavath said.
WASTE SEGREGATION
He further said that segregation of wastes should be an end-to-end process, from door to disposal. If anywhere this strategy breaks or if both the dry waste and wet waste are mixed, then there is no point of carrying out this activity.
So, right from the collection itself, the administration is providing bins, teaching people how to segregate the waste, informing them what are the degradable components, what plastic waste can be regenerated, etc. “We are giving two separate green and blue bins and we have trained our people who are going for door-to-door collection to pick up the garbage from the household only if it is properly segregated,” the officer said.
They have also targeted all schools within the village, especially the government schools, wherein students will be imparted this knowledge so that they will impart the same to their parents and neighbours.
APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE
“India is a country which is much more dependent on villages, and self-sufficient and clean villages actually make a clean country. So, I would appeal to the people that whatever awareness programme we are undertaking, they have to imbibe it as their own, they have to take ownership of the same, and make it a regular attitudinal change so that it sustains even after the programme is withdrawn and becomes a mass movement,” Mr. Jatavath said, in an appeal to the people.
Namma Ooru Super is a state wide campaign which is being done by rural development Panchayat Raj department. Apart from this in urban areas, the administration is also doing things under Swachch Bharat Mission. They are concentrating on construction of clean toilets in the village houses. This is being done so that the villages are free from open defecation.
