https://youtu.be/x56s818yRhQ
Five village panchayats in Honnali taluk received Nirmal Gram Puraskar (award) for 100 per cent sanitation. The villages that won the award are—Kundur, Chilur, Sunkadakatte, Malligenahalli, and Kunkova.
The Government of India had launched Nirmal Gram Puraskar in October 2003. The puraskar is an incentive to promote the Total Sanitation Campaign.
The main objective of Nirmal Gram Puraskar is to bring the topic of sanitation out in the open in the social and political development scene of rural India and to develop defecation-free clean villages.
Ganesh S R, Sarpanch of Sunkadakatte said all the houses in this village have toilets and they received Nirmal Gram Puraskar for having 100 per cent sanitation. He said that they created a lot of awareness and explained the benefits of using toilets to the poeple.
Kiran Kumar G N, one of the villagers from Kundur said all the families in that village had toilets and they didn’t defecate in open areas anymore. The Government motivated them a lot to build toilets in the house. They also get clean drinking water after the government installed Water ATM in the village.
Shivappa Hulikere, Executive Officer in Taluk Panchayat said that because of Tunga Bhadra River there are no water problems in Honnali. There are 6120 toilets across Honnali in 170 villages. They went to each family in the village along with the President, Vice-President and members of panchayat to create awareness about cleanliness and explain the advantages of having toilets.
They also told the people how having toilets will benefit the ones who maintain cleanliness and hygiene. They explained the villagers that having proper sanitation will help decreasing diseases like malaria and cholera and how it was important for the women.
On 2nd October, 2017 Honnali taluk received Nirmal Gram Puraskar. Kunkova village of the same taluk has also received ‘Gandhi Grama’ Award for the optimum utilization of government funds and the effective implementation of the rural development and Panchayat Raj department approved programs.
In Honnali, 136 villages get 1000 litres of clean drinking water. Villagers get 25 litres of water at Rs. 2 from the Water ATMs. Also, Six Multi Village Schemes (MVS) are benefitting 56 villages.
Shivappa Hulikere, Executive Officer in Taluk Panchayat said, “The people are cooperative. They work in unity with the government officials. We have also requested the government to install more water plants for 2017-18.”
