In a 'Swachh' leap, women demand toilets for Raksha Bandhan

RAIPUR: Adopting innovative methods for awareness campaign, tribal Jashpur district in North Chhattisgarh today kicked off a month long “Swachh Bandan Divas” rallies under which women will demand construction of toilets as their “Raksha Bandhan” gift form their brothers on the festival on August 18.
On its first day, from dawn to dusk around 30,000 village residents along with along with Collector Priyanka Shukla, Khadi and Gram Udyog President Krishna Kumar Roy, Jila Panchayat CEO Deepak Soni and other district officials participated in the rally.
Jashpur consists of eight development blocks and the awareness rally would be carried out in all the villages falling under these blocks within span of one month. While the rally was chosen to start on July 18 because it’s exactly a month ahead of the day when the entire country would be celebrating Raksha Bandhan, women, young men and neo-literates of Jashpur by marching ahead in various first of its kind social appeal rallies under Swachh Bharat Mission celebrated Swachhata Bandhan Diwas.
The day started with thousands of women and girls taking out ‘Ánurodh Rallies’ where they appealed to people to gift toilets to their sisters on their Rakshabandhan so that they can live in a socially safe and respectable environment. The women of Jashpur realised that it would take some time to build toilets and decided to make this appeal a month advance.
There was a leap in momentum of emotional appeal when the young men from across the district went on to participate in this rally.
Jashpur Collector Dr Priyanka Shukla told TOI “just to ensure that all men understand how important is presence of toilet in home for women’s safety this initiative was taken up. The very fact that one of the noted leaders of the district Krishna Rai himself has gifted a toilet to a lady, who does not have a biological brother has made this really special.”