Churchgate station to accept used water bottles and pay for them

Indian Railways have come up with a novel method to keep railway stations free of discarded water bottles. If everything goes as per plans, used plastic water bottles on tracks may become a thing of the past because Western Railway will install bottle-crushing machines at 10 suburban stations. Churchgate is elected to be the first station that would have the first Swachh Bharat recycling machine - it will coincide with World Environment Day on June 5.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 3 June 2016.

AS explained by the authorities, the machines can handle 5,000 bottles a day. There will be a pilot project which will be extended if the response is good. The stations selected by the Western Railway is based on footfalls. Long distance trains also operate from some of them.
The scheme in short is - users will get an instant reward when returning used containers. The machines will accept only bottles with authentic bar codes. Once the bottle is given for recycling, a printout will be issued and these coupons can be redeemed at outlets with which the machine-provider has tied up for discounts. The recycled bottles will be given to fibre-manufacturing companies for use in making clothes, carpets and grocery bags.
While wishing all the best to the idea, one can assume the long queue that will form at the outlet. People will rush helter-skelter to locate the outlet and hand over the used bottles to collect the reward coupon. Then they have to locate the place where the coupon can be redeemed which may be far away from where he lives!!! Wonder whether there will be many takers.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Swachh Bharat campaign in Chhattisgarh - tribals say no toilet, no marriage

This is bound to boost the Swachh Bhbarat campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The tribal community of Halba of Chhattisgarh have decided not to give their daughters in marriage to families that do not have toilets. The decision has been taken by 52 'gram' panchayats in Rajnandgaon district and it comprises 10,000 tribal community of Halba have pledged not to marry their daughters or keep any relationship with households that do not have toilets.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com.

The Halba community is spread across 110 villages across 52 'gram' panchayats. The campaign "agar sauchalaya nahi toh beti aur roti nahi denge" (No toilet; no daughter or bread) has been launched in the entire district to motivate people, predominantly tribals, to build toilets in their homes.
Incidentally, this district, happens to be the home constituency of chief minister Dr Raman Singh and it is expected to achieve 100 percent open defecation free status.
The district president of Halba Samaj in Rajnandgaon district has admitted that majority of the people from his community are illiterate and are not aware about the advantages of having a defection-free society. A total of 1700 families have supported this initiative.

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#SwachhBharat #NirmalBharatAbhiyan #toilets As per latest information, as many as 7.1 lakh individual household toilets had been built in January and this was the highest for any month since the project was launched in October Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream project, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
However, it falls far short of the planned 1.2 crore toilets for the fiscal year as reported in economictimes.indiatimes.com dated 17 February 2015.
Data released by the government is that a total of 31.83 lakh toilets have been built between April 2014 and January 2015 – this is approximately 25.4% of the target for 2014-15. The program envisages an investment of nearly Rs 2 lakh crore over the next five years in order to construct 12 crore toilets.
It seems there is more than meets the eye because an official has indicated that the 'internal target' set for the year is 50 lakh and the associated ministry of drinking water and sanitation would be able to meet the target. He has clarified that the targets shown on the website are basically to push the states to do more.
The bottom line is that the internal target set earlier under the erstwhile Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan of 1999 of the previous UPA government, i.e. 50 lakh household toilets for this year and in subsequent years would be met since funds are not a constraint.