EMN
Dimapur, April 12
There was a time when finding a toilet for citizens and visitors to Kohima town was a frustrating task. Talking of a state capital that didn’t even have any public toilets, the only saving grace back then was the rancid, horribly filthy public toilets of the old NST ticketing station.
On Tuesday, a pay and use toilet facility was inaugurated for Nagaland’s capital town. For now though, it’s in Officers’ Hill. Citizens caught in the main town will have to wait a bit longer at the door unless they are willing to trek all the way up to Officers’ Hill.
A public pay-and-use toilet was inaugurated at Officer’s Hill (Thegabakha) colony in the town on April 12. The facility is opposite to the Indian Red Cross Society Complex. The facility was inaugurated by the deputy advisor to the Central Public Health Engineering and Environmental Organization, Rohit Kakkar, during a small event marking the inauguration.
Speaking during the formal event, the chief guest said that construction of toilet ‘was one of the most important activities across the country.’ Stating that 6% of the country’s economy was being used for sanitation projects, he congratulated the community for ‘coming out with beautifully constructed toilet.’ Kakkar urged the people to use and maintain the toilet ‘sanitarily.’
Presenting a brief report about the construction and facility, the general secretary of officers hill colony council, Roukuolhouvo Miachieo, informed that the pay-and-use toilet was constructed under a scheme of the Swachh Bharat Mission at a cost of Rs 4,17,000. The government offered funds amounting to Rs.1,40,000 while Rs. 2,77,000 was provided by the local community.
Miachieo also informed that the toilet was the “first of its kind” with a provision in place for physically-challenged people to use the facility and for free for them. He expressed gratitude to T Khel of Kohima village for donating the land, and for the joint efforts by the government and its agencies in concern, the local community, the Public Health Engineering department, the sanitation committee of Officer’s Hill (Thegabakha) Colony Council, the Urban Development department, and the Kohima Municipal Council for contributing to the project.
Some facts about sanitation you just cannot just dump it out
* Nearly 1.5 million children under the age of five die every year from diarrhea globally.
* Diarrhoeal diseases are the second most common cause of death of young children in developing countries, killing more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined, and resulting in 1 death every 20 seconds.
* Toilets have added 20 years to the human lifespan over the past 2 centuries.
* In rich nations, 30% of clean water is used to flush poo into sewers.
* No toilet, so they have to defecate in the open? 1.1 billion.
* 40% of people worldwide don’t have a safe and healthy way to defecate.
* 90% of diarrhea cases are caused by food or water contaminated by feces.
* Feces is responsible for more than 50% of the 9 million preventable child deaths each year.
*The estimated number of grams of fecal matter consumed everyday by people without a toilet is 10 grams.
* One gram of poo is home to 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasites and 100 worm eggs.
* 2.5 billion people do not have access to a clean and safe toilet.
* There are 40,000 active germs per square inch on a public restroom toilet handle.
* Toilets have added 20 years to the human lifespan over the past 2 centuries.
* You will spend 3 years of your life on your toilet.
* Washing hands could save 3.5 million kids lives every year.
* Together, all of us produce 7 billion liters of poo every day.
* Estimated annual gain in economic productivity if everyone had a toilet: $225 billion.
* $9.5B would give a toilet to half (1.3 billion) the people who need one. The annual gain from that investment would translate to $63B.
* A whopping 600 million or 53 per cent of India’s population take a dump in the open.
* The economic burden of not having adequate sanitation facilities drains the Indian economy of $54 billion annually.
(Source: worldtoiletday.org;
World Bank)
