32 families of a village under Ranishankail upazila of Thakurgaon are defecating under the open sky or in the bushes being deprived of proper sanitation facilities.
One and a half hundred people, including men, women and children of these families are compelled to defecate under the open sky before dawn every day.
As a result, the environment is being polluted and these people are being infected with various worm-borne diseases such as diarrhoea.
It is learned that the upazila administration recovered land from a Khas pond in Nekmarad Ghanshyampur mouza under Ranishankail upazila of Thakurgaon and allotted it to 32 local landless people in June last year.
It was not possible to set up a cluster village on that Khas land as there was no government funding available at that time. However, the members of these 32 landless families have built houses there under their own initiative and have been living there.
Among the allottees, there are people from the indigenous Hindu Muslim and Harijan communities. Although these poor and helpless people are living there, they are deprived of hygienic toilets and water supplies.
Due to this, the residents of the poor community are rushing to the bushes respond to the call of nature. In this way, the residents living there are suffering from various diseases including diarrhoea.
Some residents including Malati Rani and Shantu Pahan said, "Since we do not have land to live on, last year the then Upazila Assistant Commissioner (Land) Sohag Chandra Saha allotted us three hundred acres of land for accommodation and gave us the opportunity to live there”.
“Since we were not provided with anything by the government, we borrowed money and build houses there ourselves. But we could not afford to manage safe drinking water and sanitary toilets due to financial crisis”, they added.
They complained, they could not come under the sanitation system officially even after visiting the Upazila Public Health Engineer's Office and public representatives repetedly. Together with the locals, they have installed some small size tube wells to reduce the suffering of water supply. However, due to the economic crisis, it was not possible for them to install sanitary toilets.
They lamented that even though we are citizens of the country, they are neglected. No one is looking for them. They demanded from the higher authorities in the government that their houses should be brought under government assistance along with sanitary toilets and potable water system.
Tariqul Islam, Deputy Assistant Engineer of the Upazila Public Health Engineering Office, said, "We have already notified higher authorities to bring 13 cluster villages under sanitation system. Action will be taken only after approval”.
Upazila Chairman Shahriar Azam Munna said, “ It was surprising to think that people were still defecating in the bushes. I will take the matter seriously and talk to the concerned authorities”.
