State Level Consultation on Possible Roles of Academia in Chhattisgarh Towards Swachch Bharat

                                                      

PRIA in partnership with Water Aid organised a one-day State Level Consultation on Possible Roles of Academia Towards Swachh Bharat on 28th January 2016 at the Academy of Administration, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The workshop was convened by Dr. Rajesh Tandon, President, PRIA, and UNESCO Chair in CBRSR. Mr Sunil Kumar, IAS (retd), Vice Chairperson, State Planning Commission; Mr. D.S. Misra, IAS, Director General, Chhattisgarh Administrative Academy; Mr. P.P. Soti, Member, State Planning Commission; Mr. Binu Arickal, Regional Manager, Water Aid (West); and Mr. Manoj Rai, Director, PRIA were at the dais. The workshop was attended by professors/lecturers and students from a number of universities and colleges across various districts of Chhattisgarh.
 
To realize the commitments to clean India in targeted time, the Government of India has launched Swachch Bharat Mission (SBM) in mission mode. What roles can academia play to attain Swachch Bharat? The discussions centred on the proactive involvement of academic institutions in expediting the implementation of SBM in Chhattisgarh. Involving academic institutions in SBM will help draw learnings from implementation experiences and their expertise will be useful in conducting systematic research. PRIA can play a facilitating role in the interface between SBM State Mission and academic institutions.

Mr. P.P Soti, member, State Planning Commission stressed that attitudinal and behavioural change needs to be initiated at individual level to bring about a transformed society. Mr. Sunil Kumar in his address shared that all academic institutions should be linked with local government bodies, starting from municipalities, emphasizing local issues and challenges. It is also important to share any research findings which could improve any schemes of the government to influence and help in planning. Dr. Rajesh Tandon remarked that in the past 34 years PRIA has very actively been involved in citizen governance, participatory research and has worked with academic institutions to promote social responsibility in higher education. He offered PRIA's expertise in facilitating training and participatory research in close association with academic institutions. Dr. Tandon also shared his experiences as UNESCO Chair. 
Faculty from social studies departments shared their research on sanitation; the faculty of engineering mentioned the challenges and lack of availability of information for planning and lack of proper training on design.

The participants were interested in working together to bring about change and urged PRIA to play a facilitator's role towards this goal.