Muktsar, September 30
To spread the message of total sanitation, the state water supply and sanitation department has come up with a bizarre idea. It has put up posters, showing man and dog both answering the call of nature in the open, with the message, "Kutte di taan mazboori ho sakdi hai, par tuhadi nahi (It may be a compulsion for dogs, but not for you).
To spread the message of total sanitation, the state water supply and sanitation department has come up with a bizarre idea. It has put up posters, showing man and dog both answering the call of nature in the open, with the message, "Kutte di taan mazboori ho sakdi hai, par tuhadi nahi (It may be a compulsion for dogs, but not for you).
The posters may be offending, but if the officials of the department are to be believed, then it was the only method available to appeal to those who have not constructed toilets in their houses.
Yadwinder Singh Dhillon, Executive Engineer, Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Muktsar, who has designed these posters, said, "The posters have been put up at public places in the town and villages to make a public appeal that not only should people construct toilets in houses, but also use them.'
"We have learnt that in some villages, toilets made with financial assistance from the Central Government were not being used by the people. So, such weird posters were the need of the hour to spread the message of total sanitation. On seeing these posters, the womenfolk and children will definitely raise the issue with the head of their families, who will make some effort to construct a toilet in their house," he added.
Dhillon further said that as per the Central Government's scheme, the department was providing an assistance of Rs 4,600 to families below poverty line (BPL), who did not have a toilet in their houses.
Not only this, the department has made some other posters, which read as, "Pind de janbaaz, jihde aapniyan jananiyan te bacheya layi latrine nahi bna sake (Brave people of the village, who could not construct toilets for their wives and children); "Punjabiya kol mobile jyada han, toilet ghatt (Punjabis have more mobile phones than toilets).
With these posters, so far put up in Marar Kalan, Jhabelwali, Wattu, Udekaran, Wara Kishanpura, Kauni, Bhagsar and Smagh villages, the officials of the department are hopeful of improving the situation.
Giving another reason behind the idea, a senior official said that the total amount sent by the Central Government in the past for making toilets had not been utilised. Therefore, the department was not entitled to get the next installment of funds, which was increasing the worries of the officials concerned.
Courtesy: The Tribune (but with some modifications)
