Like a Pied Piper, the Sarpanch of Shambhunipalli village, A. Samrajyam Goud blowing whistle goes around the village at 5 a.m. accompanied by his office peon every day.
His purpose? The sound of whistle alerts all those trying to sneak out to defecate openly. “We have prohibited open defecation for past one year. However, some people complain that they are habituated to go out,” he explains.
The Shambhunipalli village in this Kamalapur mandal is one among the 20 Gram Panchayats and is first to be declared as free from open defecation (ODF) village. All the 370 houses now have twin pit Individual Sanitary Latrines (ISL).
The Sarpanch said they had resolved at the Gram Panchayat meeting that those defecating openly would have their power and drinking water connections suspended immediately. Thus he could bring order and ensure that villagers get used to the ISLs.
“We are also constructing water harvesting structures and already 50% of the village is covered under it,” explained MNREGS field assistant M. Tirupathi. The Central Government has declared the Shambhunipalli village as ideal village under Unnat Bharati Abhiyan and soon the District Collector will receive the award.
Enthused by the award, Mr. Samrajyam Goud said that they wanted to close the liquor belt shops in the village and seek State Government help in constructing drains.
The village for a long time did not have a dumping yard and burial ground. Now in the recent past, they acquired land for both. The sarpanch says they have constituted 14 committees involving majority of people in the village. The decisions are taken at the meetings of the committees and are binding on all.
With one year to go for Sarpanch elections, Mr. Samrajyam Goud has been working with vigour to win the hearts of all villagers implementing the best practices introduced by the State and Central governments.
“Ours is a small village and already many have come from other villages to see how we succeeded in achieving 100 per cent ISLs. We want to do more indeed and we will do. The first is to close all liquor belt shops,” the Sarpanch said.
