State Minster for Local Government Rural Development (LGRD) and Cooperatives Moshiur Rahman Ranga on Tuesday underscored the need for ensuring hygienic and developed sanitation system as more than 40 per cent people of the country are yet to come under hygienic sanitary system. The state minister was addressing at the inaugural function of the San Mark City project at the CIRDAP auditorium here. With the financial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the San Mark City project would introduce affordable on-site sanitation technologies on large scale.
Under the project, four on-site composting toilet technologies will be explored for slums in urban Bangladesh. The four new toilet technologies are Tiger Toilet, Sun-Mar composting toilet, Enbiolet and the Biofill.
The installation works of such hygienic toilet technologies under the project would start soon at four slums in the city and two unions under Savar upazila which ultimately would benefit around 2000 families in the project area.
The project is being jointly implemented by three national and international NGOs-ICCO Cooperation, iDE and Dustha Shastha Kendra (DSK).
Quoting the report-2012, jointly compiled by the UNICEF and Joint monitoring programme of the World Health Organization (WHO), the LGRD state minister said about 56 per cent people already have come under hygienic and developed sanitation system in Bangladesh and it would to be raised up to 66 per cent by 2015.
Saying that achievement of 66 per cent hygienic toilet coverage target is challenging, the minister said, “We will achieve the target if we work in a coordinated way.” He said about 90 per cent sanitation coverage are reported in the country but at least 25 per cent people have no opportunity to use their own toilets.”
Prof Dr M Ashraf Ali from the Department of Civil Engineering of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Brian Arbogast, director of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr Dibalok Singha, executive director from DSK and Depepak Dhoj Khadka, country director of iDE, were the penal discussants.
Besides, the rapid urbanization also remains a challenge to achieve the target of sanitation, Moshiur said, adding that it is very much difficult to ensure hygienic and developed sanitation system at the slums in the city compared with different rural areas in the country.
About introducing four new toilet technologies in the country, Dr Diblok Singha, executive director of Dustha Shastha Kendra, told the workshop that now the pit-system sanitary toilets are popular in the country but it is not totally hygienic and developed.
On the contrary, the new toilet technology is fully hygienic and the technologies have complete waste treatment system and are also environment friendly, he added.
Representatives from private sector enterprises, public sector, development organizations, donors and civil society groups, among others, attended the function while Regional Manager of ICCO Cooperation, a Dutch International NGO, and South and Central Asia Regional Office PePijn Trapman was in the chair.
