Rural areas to get facelift soon

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Anantapur: Rural areas will get a facelift with sanitation measures taken up under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan(NBA) programme being implemented by the Rural Water Supply department in the district.
Anantapur RWS superintendent engineer Prabhakar Rao told this correspondent on Tuesday that the Central government was focussing on sanitation measures and giving top priority to health and hygiene in rural areas.
Mr Prabhakar Rao said that the main intention of the programme was to encourage rural people to keep their premises clean by utilising the solid waste management programme properly.
“The people can avail vehicles to dump waste at their villages,” Mr Rao said and added the government was sanctioning Rs 9-20 lakh depending upon the population of the gram panchayat for the purpose.
Apart from this, rainwater harvesting pits should be constructed at each residence to avoid leakage of drainage on the main roads and spreading contaminated diseases.
“Generally, most of the villages were affected due to outbreak of contaminated diseases during rainy and summer seasons due to poor drainage system,” the RWS superintendent engineer said.
Mr Rao said that 315 villages from each district have been selected under the project for the current financial year.
In addition, the programme would encourage the rural people to construct toilets at their houses as part of improving sanitary conditions.
Mr Rao said that each toilet unit cost Rs  9,100 in which Rs  4,600 will be given under NBA while the remaining Rs  4,500 would be released under NREGA.