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Thursday, September 19, 2013

Keep your locality tidy‚ take part in clean up campaign tomorrow

KATHMANDU: The government is launching a ‘Clean Up Nepal’ campaign coinciding with the World Sanitation Day, 2013, on Saturday.
Organising a press conference, the Solid Waste Management Technical Support Centre today urged all the stakeholders to actively participate in the campaign in order to keep the city and locality clean and tidy. 
This year’s World Sanitation Day slogan is: ‘Our place, our planet, our responsibility’. Nepal is organising the campaign with the slogan ‘Together let’s sparkle Nepal’. 
“We appeal to everyone to participate in the sanitation campaign from their locality from seven in the morning to noon on September 21,” said Sumitra Amatya, Director, SWMTSC. “We need helping hands to make our places clean and healthy,” she added. According to SWMTSC, the campaign will begin at 200 places across the country on Saturday. “Some 10,000 volunteers and 300 different organisations are taking part in the programme,” said Amatya.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Urban Development has formulated a policy on urban development which focuses on waste management, drinking water and sewerage management, pollution control, greenery promotion and enhancing the beauty of cities.
The government has plans to provide universal access to basic drinking water and sanitation facilities to all by 2017 as per the Millennium Development Goals. Water and sanitation traps people in a vicious circle of disease, poverty and cost people their lives, said experts at the press meet today. According to the Ministry of Urban development, only 82 per cent of the population have access to drinking water and only 62 per cent have access to sanitation facilities in Nepal.

Though the data indicates that Nepal has met MDG target on water and sanitation, only 50 per cent of water supply schemes are functional and sustainability of the sanitation practices is still questionable. The World Sanitation Day, which began from 1997, is marked on the second week of September by 130 countries across the world. 
About 35 million people around the world participate in the ‘Clean up the World’ campaign every year.

Source: The Himalayan Times

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