Manipur state recorded poorest performer of total sanitation campaign

Imphal, August 30 2010: The Communication and Capacity Development Unit (CCDU) Manipur, which has been singled out as the poorest performer among the states of the country in implementing "Total Sanitation Campaign", one of the flagship programmes of the Centre, is being run single handedly by a director.

The CCD Unit set up five years back in 2005 with the sole purpose of implementing the "Total Sanitation Programme", a flagship programme of the Union government.

Manipur was singled out as the poorest performer of the total Sanitation Campaign among the other states of the country with only 9000 individual household latrines (IHHL) completed out of six lakh targeted under the scheme till the end of fiscal year 2009-10, an official source said.

Observing the poor performance, the state was motivated by Plan Approval Committee (PAC) of the Department of Drinking Water Supply of Union Ministry of Rural Development by suggesting exposure visits of its officials to West Bengal and Sikkim where the scheme were successfully implemented.

The state Community and Capacity Development (CCDU) unit, which was set up under the aegis of the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, has been in operation since 2005 in the state.

It has been set up for the purpose of implementing the "Total Sanitation programme" in the state.

The importance of this programme cannot be overlooked as it is one of the flagship programme of the Union government.

The staffing pattern of CCDU has been designated by the Government of India.

The Plan Approval Committee in its meeting held on April 23, 2009 at New Delhi accorded approval to the staff pattern proposed by the Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) 2009-10 of CCDU, Manipur and also approved to the filling up of staff on deputation and contract basis, official sources said.

The approved staff pattern includes appointment of a Director with monthly emolument of Rs 35,000, State Coordinator with the same emolument and an Accountant (Cashier) with a monthly emolument of 30,000 on deputation and engagement of three Consultants, two Data Entry Operators, one Peon, and one Security Guard on contract basis.

Despite the fact that the approval was given one year and a half back, at present only the post of Director has been filled on deputation by L Swamikanta Singh, a Senior Engineer level officer from the PHED Department, and he has been single handedly running CCDU since his appointment on December 1, 2008 .

The hitherto unmoved government has started moving with the placing of a proposal for filling up the required staff of the CCDU as per approved pattern,an official source said.
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