Dhangadi – It has been many years since Binod Rana of Dhangadi Sub-Metropolitan City-15 Urma started the grocery shop. He has a concrete house. But the toilet was built only a few years ago. Not only his, but mostly every houses in the village’s Rana community didn’t have toilet.
For years, people living in the community have been defecating in the open including their house front porch, river, road side and forest. A few years ago, Khadka Bahadur Shah was transferred to the Urma Village Development Committee (VDC) as the VDC secretary and he became annoyed by the open defecation around the VDC office building. More than that, he was infuriated by the tendency to break open the door of VDC office if anyone come to the village as guests.
Then he summoned the stakeholders and leaders of the village and held discussions regarding the lack of toilets. And plans were made to build toilets. But the attempt failed as no one built a toilet. As the adage goes—where there is will, there is a way, Shah wanted to see every household of Urma’s Rana community build toilet at their house. So in the fiscal year 2068-69, Shah endorsed a plan to install biogas plant at every household from the village council and implemented it.
The residents of then Urma VDC have been building toilets as a campaign. Every household in the Rana community has built toilet because of the campaign and gradually everyone developed the habit of using toilet.
Binod Rana says everyone in the village has been building toilet as part of the campaign. “We build the toilet the very year we were given the stones, pebbles, and sand for free to build the toilet,” he said. So far, 60 families of Urma have installed biogas along with building toilet. Everyone in the family has built toilet in the village. The village has become a model for building toilet and biogas plant, says Ward-15, Chairman Phulram Chaudhary.
The Rana community of Urma are not weak in terms economy. It has been years since some of them have built concrete house. However, they hadn’t also built toilet at their houses. They built toilets only the after VDC gave stones, and sand as part of toilet building campaign.
The village has become clean after the people built toilets at the houses. Binod Rana said that they no longer need go to the roadside, forest and riverbanks to answer the nature’s call. While the biogas plant built along with the toilet has been easier for cooking.
