Swaccho – Nirapad Paribesh (Clean and Safe Environment) in Rajnagar Block of Birbhum district (West Bengal)

Contributed By: Dr. M.N Roy, Dr. Debasri Mukherjee, Mrs. Mayuri Sen, Ms. Poulami Basu, Mr. Debojyoti Majumder

Rajnagar has already been declared Open Defecation Free and the next challenge is to sustain the ODF status and maintain a clean environment by improving the WASH infrastructure and facilities and adoption of hygienic behaviour by all. There are still gaps in access to sanitation facilities and adoption of sanitary behaviour to avoid open defecation and those are to be bridged as fast as possible. A detail Baseline study was conducted for evaluating the WASH status on water and sanitation sectors at households and in Rajnagar block of Birbhum district in West Bengal. A baseline survey was conducted in the selected area to explore new interventions and development in WASH infrastructure and facilities. For the proposed study, sample will be selected from the entire block comprising of 5 Gram Panchayats (GPs) by applying the principle of Stratified Random Sampling. The stratification has been done considering the hierarchy of the educational institutions. For the highest strata, i.e., higher secondary school, no sampling will be applied. For the next two stratums, the sample selection will be done by following Simple Random Sampling Without Replacement. In all, 71 HHs, 45 primary and upper primary schools, 10 high schools and 45 AWCs were surveyed by the study team. It can be noted that the sample represent the household, primary school and Anganwadi Centres at 90% level of statistical confidence and 10% margin of error. Moreover, the selection of high schools follows full enumeration method. The analysis was used to know the actual status related to various WASH aspects of the study and the quantitative results were validated with qualitative data obtained through in-depth interviews and field observations for getting better insight of the ground reality.

Swaccho – Nirapad Paribesh (Clean and Safe Environment) in Rajnagar Block of Birbhum district (West Bengal)