CHANDIGARH: Celebrated global social service organisation, Sulabh International, today firmed up a strategic tie-up with the Punjab government for a statewide hygiene programme.

The Sulabh would join up the state government initially for the construction of public & private hygiene units, including improvised, low flush toilets for the rural and the urban poor in three districts, focusing on the Kandi areas of Hoshiarpur, the waterlogged areas of Mukatsar and the border belt of Tarn Taran districts. These however would be pilot projects for ultimately bringing the entire state with in the ambit of the project.

The two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding when athe founder of the international social service body Padam Vibhushan Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak called on the Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal here this morning. All 12500 odd villages as well as several urban areas of the state are proposed to be covered under the project.

The India-based organization SISSO works to promote human rights, environmental sanitation, usage of non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms through education. Initially, the organization would execute the construction of of 519 units of Sulabh Shauchalya (Pour-Flush Toilets) in four villages Panjwa (105 Units), Sikhwala (192 Units), Tarmala (93   Units) & Gaggar (129 Units) at total cost of Rs. 51.90 lacs.  Each unit will cost Rs. 10,000.

The Chief Minister expressed his concern to provide Sulabh toilets in the poorest of the poor areas in rural and urban Punjab. He invited Dr. Pathak to visit the interior Punjab to have first hand information about the sanitation problems and suggest ways and means to tackle these effectively.   The Chief Minister was highly impressed by the presentation made by Dr. Pathak to highlight the activities and achievement of SISSO. 

Dr. Pathak said that the programmes initiated by SISSO include projects to obtain bio-gas from human excreta and make it available for various uses like cooking, street lighting and to provide pour-flush toilets facility in individual houses as well as public places on the pay-and-use basis. The organisation has also done premier works in , poverty alleviation, employment generation and creating change-agent for integrated rural development.

Mr. Badal assured Dr. Pathak of state government's fulsome support in his mission to provide clean sanitation to the people of Punjab especially in the rural areas through the concept of 'Sulabh Shauchalaya'.