Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday declared ‘clean’ status for 501 grama panchayats and 58 municipalities as part of the 100-day action plan.
Making the declaration at an online conference, he said the initial plan was to declare at least 250 local bodies as clean, based on them satisfying a set of conditions, but more than double that number had been achieved in the period. All grama panchayats in as many as 30 block panchayats had achieved the status.
The clean status is awarded to local bodies based on a set of parameters, including mechanisms for waste treatment at source, material recovery facilities, segregated collection, and recycling of non-biodegradable waste. The Haritha Keralam Mission and the Suchitwa Mission had anchored the activities.
Mr.Vijayan lauded the local bodies that managed to achieve the status even when they were weighed down with a slew of responsibilities due to COVID-19 and the floods in successive years.
“Cleanliness is the gauge which shows the level of development in a state. Even if you attain development in all sectors and people still have to shield their noses while walking the streets, it will be a huge setback for the State’s developmental aspirations. For the local bodies too, even amid all the other major responsibilities, the primary responsibility is sanitation. The Haritha Keralam Mission was formed to coordinate all such activities with mass participation. More local bodies are expected to achieve this status this month itself,” the Chief Minister said.
He said there had been a change in the attitude of the general public due to the grass-roots level campaigns taken up by the local bodies. The practice of throwing waste by the roadside had come down considerably in recent years. “But, not all of the waste can be processed in a decentralised manner. For this, decentralised waste treatment plants are needed,” he said.
