National Urban Sanitation Policy soon: Rajamani
New Delhi, Mar 22 (UNI) The government will bring out a National Urban Sanitation Policy soon, Joint Secretary with Urban Development Ministry M Rajamani said today.
The policy, which was under preparation, aimed at bringing out qualitative change in the sanitation situation and health of the people in urban areas, he said while addressing delegates at a seminar 'Coping with Water Scarcity; The Urban Scenario' organised on the occasion of the World Water Day here.
The government had given top priority to projects like water and sanitation, sewerage, solid waste management, storm water drainage in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to bring about positive change in the living standards of people, he said.
Mr Rajamani, who was also in-charge of the Directorate of the JNNURM, stated that in five years there would be a turnaround in the situation in the mission cities.
The progress in the implementation of renewal mission had been very good so far. Our cities should compete to attract investments from multinationals and this could take place only if we had cleaner cities with urban infrastructure of international standard, he said.
The government was in the process of setting up Community Participation Fund to enlist support and wider participation of people in the implementation of urban infrastructure development projects, he added.
The joint secretary urged non-governmental organisations to do their bit to bring out an improvement in the living standard of the poor and disadvantaged sections.
''Sanitation is one of most important inventions in the human history, which impacts the life of the people.'' Mr Rajamani stated that the scale and pace of operations in this field had to be increased to bring about radical change faster and in this context mentioned the example of Kerala, which had anti poverty sub plans in the budget of the Urban Local Bodies.
UNI