Tamil Nadu - Nagapattinam   

Tsunami victims get houses with modern toilets

TIMELY: Roland Angerer (right), Country Director, Plan International, symbolically handing over the keys of the 70 tsunami permanent houses built by REAL, an NGO, to M.Jayaraman, Collector, at Chandrapadi in Nagapattinam district on Friday.

NAGAPATTINAM: For the first time tsunami-hit families were provided permanent houses with bathroom attached ecosan toilets at Chandrapadi coastal village in Nagapattinam district on Friday.

Collector M. Jayaraman, who distributed the 70 permanent houses with ecosan toilets built by non-governmental organisation REALat a cost of Rs.1.80 crore for the tsunami-affected families in Chandrapadi village, said that the NGOs were providing timely help with new technologies.

He said that ecosan toilets were most suitable for high water table coastal areas.

The Collector pointed out that the district administration was taking steps to complete the construction of the remaining permanent houses in the tsunami-hit villages and directed the NGOs and Government agencies would hand over the houses to the beneficiaries as quickly as possible.

Of the target of 19,736 permanent houses, 16,093 had already been completed and handed over. The remaining 2,755 houses are under construction, he said.

Mr. Roland Angerer, Country Director, Plan International, handed over the keys of the houses to the Collector.

Prakash Kumar, ecological sanitation officer, Stockholm Environment Institute, New Delhi, said that ecosan toilets were the most sustainable model of management of human waste that could play a key role in protecting the environment.

L. Peter, secretary of REAL, that the NGO had spent about Rs.19 crore on various tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes.

M. K. Periasamy, MLA, K. Kalimuthu Advisor PLAN, New Delhi, M. Subburaman Director, Society for Community Organisation and People’s Education (SCOPE) Tiruchi, spoke.

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