Cleanliness worry for state.

The state still has a long road ahead if it wants to match the sanitation management levels in the leading states of the country, said Kamal Kar, renowned Agriculture Scientist.

Kar, pioneer of Community Led Total Sanitation [CLTS]—a grass roots approach to development that has been applied in third world countries by the  United Nations and several international non- governmental organizations—was addressing a day long workshop on community sanitation, organized by the public health engineering department [PHED] in the state capital.

It is a matter concern that even as the country is celebrating its 62^nd Republic day.  600 million people are still defecating in the open every day.  Of this seven crore people are in Bihar.  It is not that Govt. at state and at the Centre have done nothing about it.

But no initiative so far has had much impact because these initiatives do not have a community basis.  These are mostly forced on the community. CLTS, on the other hand, advocates community participation to tackle issues like this said Kar.

Kar also said Bihar is among the slow—picker states because of various reasons.  The current sanitation coverage in the state is less than 25 %. Open defecation is the most preferred option in villages cutting across caste, gender and social status. Most of the rural households in Bihar are at the bottom of the sanitation ladder. CLTS is one approach to solve the sanitation problem he said.