Andhra Pradesh’s CLAP campaign to clean up villages

• Andhra Pradesh government had on October 2 started the Clean Andhra Pradesh (CLAP)-Jagananna Swachha Sankalpam programme to clean up rural areas, improve sanitation conditions and waste management with public participation.
• Rural households are told not to dispose of garbage on the streets and instead hand it over to the garbage collector.
• Panchayat Raj Minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy said that by October this year, they will achieve all the targets under CLAP which includes 100 per cent rural household garbage collection.

Objectives of CLAP

• Apart from door-to-door collection of garbage, the campaign aims for segregation of liquid and solid waste, onsite waste treatment, and encouraging home composting.
• Another major initiative is to make the rural areas free of open defecation.
• In fact, over 13,000 sarpanches have been “strictly instructed” to lead the Open Defecation Free (ODF) campaign from the front and ensure that their villages are ODF and achieve ODF Plus status by the end of 2022.

ODF plus village

• An ODF plus village is defined as “a village which sustains its ODF status, ensures solid and liquid waste management and is visually clean.
• By the end of this year, the Andhra government wants the state to become litter-free and garbage-free.
• A more complex project involves treatment of sewage water at 582 locations across the state using soil bio-technology treatment, wetland treatment, and waste stabilisation ponds.

Sanitation drive and progress so far

• The government has deployed gram panchayat workers and officials, health workers, members of the village and ward secretariats set up by the government, and members of Zilla and Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies.
• The door-to-door collection drive has crossed 60 per cent and will cover all households by October this year but officials say it is difficult to maintain total cleanliness as many people continue to litter and throw garbage irresponsibly.
• The objectives of waste segregation and sewage water treatment are also being met slowly as per the minister.