In Assam, a clean village contest, winner gets a 1-km concrete road

The contest is tough and the stakes are high: the winning village gets a one-km concrete road. The second prize is a development programme worth Rs 10 lakh. The third prize is worth Rs 8 lakh, the fourth prize worth Rs 5 lakh and the fifth prize worth Rs 3 lakh. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is expected to visit Khumtai on March 17 to declare the winners. Until then, the results will remain in a sealed envelope with Saikia.

Bipul Baruah, 42, who runs a shop in Bosa village, says that if their village wins, they will ask  for a road to be built from the village centre to the local primary school. Currently, a kucha path leads to the school, flanked on either side by paddy fields and tea plantations.

“We really need a road there. Children use that path every day and it gets really muddy during the rainy season,” he says. “If we win any of the other prizes, we can use the money to build a clubhouse and to build a boundary for the common lake here,” said Baruah.

Talking to The Indian Express, MLA Saikia points to the tourist footfall in Meghalaya’s Mawlynnong, famous as ‘Asia’s cleanest village’, and says he came up with the competition in a bid to promote rural tourism in the region. “Two of the villages in Khumtai — Jugibari and Melamora — have had tourists coming in since parks have been developed around lakes there. But I want to make all of Khumtai a destination for rural tourism. But since we don’t have hills or a river here, I want cleanliness to be our capital,” he said.

Since the competition was declared on February 13, the villages and tea gardens have begun sprucing up. Between March 1 and 3, a preliminary survey was carried out, after which 48 villages and three tea gardens were disqualified. On March 4 and 5, five groups of judges — one group for villages under each of the four zila parishads and one for the tea gardens — visited the remaining villages to decide on the winners.

“A good thing that has come out of this is that all the stockpiled garbage has been cleared. But now the cleanliness has to be sustained. The biggest success of this has been the people’s involvement. They got so enthusiastic about it that even I was taken by surprise,” said Saikia.

In Melamora village, a group of 18 youngsters have been taking turns to sweep the common areas of the village every morning. “We take turns and do it in groups of 6-7 people. We start at 5.30 am and, because our village is large, it takes us around two hours. Other people also join us when we cross their homes,” says Jubilee Gogoi, 21, a BA graduate from Melamora College.

The main focus of the cleanliness drive has been on clearing plastic waste.

“Once the bamboo baskets get full, a vehicle arranged for by the MLA comes by and picks up the waste and takes it to a common spot. The vehicle has been coming to our village every 15 days or so,” says Monjula Saikiam, 37, a resident of Melamora village.

In the tea garden residential lines, residents say their busy schedules make it difficult for them to focus on the cleanliness drive – their work day begins at 8 am, so they do what they can before that.

“We don’t have that much time, so we start cleaning up at 6 am before getting ready for work. Some of the women have been sweeping the common areas,” says Sandhya Moni Bawri, who lives and works at the Borting tea estate.

The competition, she says, has given them a push to continue their efforts. “It’s so nice now that everything is so clean. So whether we win or not, we are planning to sweep all the common areas together on Sundays from now on,” she said.