National Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Awareness Week was launched in Nagaland by the State Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) in its conference hall, Kohima.
Addressing the inaugural function, secretary PHED, Anenla S Longchari, said that the awareness week was the need of the hour to educate people on sanitation. The awareness week would culminate on March 22 on the World Water Day.
As Nagaland joined the rest of the world to observe the week-long awareness campaign with a reminder that water was the core of sustainable development, poverty reduction, economic growth, environmental health and hygiene, sanitation that solely depend on water as a resource, Anenla called upon the people to join the 2015 campaign to raise awareness of water and sanitation keeping in mind that “a drop of water is flexible, powerful and a drop of water were in demand”. She formally announced the beginning of the National Rural Water and Sanitation Awareness Week starting Monday.
In a keynote address, chief engineer PHED, Kevisekho Kruse, expressed concern over the data that only 62 % of the rural households of Nagaland have hygienic household toilets and rest opted for open defecation. He also mentioned the points to make the people aware during the week.
It may be mentioned that Union Minister, Ministry for Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS), Birender Singh, and Ram Kripal Yadav, Union Minister of State, secretary and the joint secretaries of the MDWS are scheduled to visit Nagaland on March 22 to attend the closing function of the National Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Awareness Week.
According to an official release issued by K Ghushito Sumi, Director of Water Sanitation Support Organization (WSSO) under the Public Health Engineering Department of Nagaland, it said that the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has launched ‘National Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Awareness Week’ from March 16 to 22 to accelerate awareness in villages across India on issues pertaining to rural drinking water and sanitation.
The launching of the nationwide awareness week was kicked started at Haryana today and the closing ceremony would be held in Nagaland on March 22 at Kohima where host of dignitaries from MDWS Government of India would attend the function.