ISLAMABAD, Sep 28 (APP):Federal Minister/Adviser to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam Khan has said that the Ministry needs a comprehensive National Sanitation Policy to materialize the Prime Minister,s vision of Clean Pakistan. He stated this while chairing a meeting on the sanitation subject here Friday.
Secretary Climate Change Khizar Hayat Khan, Addl Secretary Khurram Ali Agha, Dr Saima of UNECEF, Ms Tanya Khan Country Coordinator WSSCC and other senior officials from the Ministry were also present in the meeting.
The meeting was appraised about the salient features of the proposed Sanitation Policy through a detailed presentation and briefed about up scaling of Pakistan Approached to Total Sanitation (PATS).
The Minister said that the National Sanitation Policy will entail creation of open defecation free environment, building of toilets on community help basis, provision of ODF appropriate drainage and sewerage system especially to the villages through local governments in accordance with the SDGs commitment. He stressed that aquifer gets contaminated when we don’t have proper sewerage and drainage system installed, creating severe sanitation and health issues for the people.
Malik Amin Aslam Khan said we have to discourage open defecation which leads to diarrhea and stunting and recent studies shown alarming figures in this regard. About 8 percent of the world’s 165 million stunted children live in just 14 countries including Pakistan.
The Adviser said that provision of clean environment will be only possible when we will have a strong legislation with system of rewards and punishments in place and we will also include this aspect in our policy recommendations. He said that community based collective behavior change will be our preferred approach. Our focus would be on creation of complete ODF villages, rather than only on construction of individual toilets which entails triggering the entire village in to changing their behavior, he added.