More than a dozen top bureaucrats travelled by bus from Hyderabad to a village in Warangal to spread awareness about sanitation practices. The individuals included the Swachh Bharat Mission Secretary, Parameswaran Iyer.
The four-hour bus journey took place on 18 February. The village the officials visited was Gangadevipally.
Accompanied by a UNICEF team, the officials were impressed by the villagers’ application of the “twin-pit technology”. This is a method that converts human waste into useful manure within a short period of time.
The officials carried a bottle of compost with them to demonstrate how it is harmless and useful organic compost. The team of officials also took the “coffee powder“ compost in their hands after emptying toilet pits.
“It’s perfectly safe and clean to empty a twin pit toilet. We needed to demonstrate how twin-pit toilet is one of the best suitable low-cost technologies in rural areas. Second, there is a stigma attached to emptying these pits after keeping them closed for six months or a year. Once you close one pit for months, the excreta gets converted into clean compost,“ Iyer told The Times of India.
In the case of twin-pit toilets, two pits are used to collect solid waste. The cover slab has two drop holes, one over each pit. Only one pit is used at a time. When one is full, its drop hole is closed and the second one is used. The waste in the first pit is allowed to dry for over a year, following which it is removed and used as manure for farms.
The twin-pit system has been proven to be safe and successful. “This method should be popularised in other places as well,” Iyer suggested.
He also praised the villagers for their successful espousal of the Swachh Bharat Mission. “We have heard a lot about this village as an ideal village. We feel happy to be here where people are first in many aspects such as sanitation, drinking water and literacy, among others,” he said.