Sikkim has better sanitation than Goa

PANAJI: The central government has approved the state's 125crore-proposal for the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan programme and has also sanctioned 8 crore as the first installment.
The programme seeks to eliminate open defecation and also treat garbage in villages. Goa's coverage of sanitary toilets is just 72.6% and it lags behind several states, including Sikkim, Haryana and Kerala, where sanitation is 100%.
The PWD, which is the implementing agency for the programme, is now seeking proposals from village panchayats for the construction of sanitary toilets and also for treating garbage in the villages.
The proposals will be placed before the state-level sanctioning committee, chaired by the PWD secretary, and the individual proposals will be considered and acted upon.
The central government started Bharat Nirmal Abhiyan in September 2012. In December 2012, PWD minister Ramkrishna 'Sudin' Dhavalikar announced the government's intentions to make Goa a 'Nirmal Rajya' by 2014, due to which the government even declared the 2013 as 'Goa state year of sanitation'.
Accordingly, the PWD has held programmes in various constituencies to raise awareness on sanitation and garbage disposal. Their campaigns particularly target village panchayats through their elected representatives who have been asked to submit their proposals for garbage management and sanitary toilets in their villages.
The PWD has a scheme of providing free toilets under the Sulabh scheme where the government gives free toilets to SC/ST, OBC and EBC (economically backward class) people whose annual income is less than 25,000.
For APL (above poverty line) people who do not have sanitary toilets, the PWD is trying to motivate them to build sanitary toilets at their own cost.
With regard to garbage disposal, the village panchayat (VP) has to identify a site for setting up a small garbage disposal plant and prepare and submit the proposal to the PWD. In this regard, PWD has shown a model garbage treatment plant which treats waste from around 200 households at Verem in Bardez taluka. Built by a private party, the plant is managed by a single person, who segregates the waste, composts the wet waste and stacks the dry waste into different compartments, including paper, metal, glass and plastics.
The PWD has shown this small treatment plant to delegations of different VPs in Goa and the elected members have expressed amazement at how well this plant works. A few VPs have already submitted their proposals to the PWD.