Ahmedabad: Himanshu Patel, Sarpanch(village head) of Gujarat’s one of the most developed, Punsri village in North Gujarat today on the sidelines of CII Smart Villages and Cities Conclave 2016 in Ahmedabad said e-toilets, e-rickshaws and mobile kiosks are some of the new projects the village is wishing to launch soon.

One of the project we are going to implement is mobile kiosks under which four two touch screen kiosks will be moved to fix place in the village every evening during 6-10 pm. Such kiosks will have internet facility. People would be able to use internet, watch video and get knowledge from such kiosks.

The other project which is going to be launched soon is e-toilets. At present, it is becoming difficult to maintain basic cleanliness in public toilet near bus-stand. A Chennai based firm has developed e-toilets with auto wash facility through censor. In such toilets, waste water is treated automatically and through overhead tank it is supplied back for reuse. Punsri panchayat intends to purchase and set up one such toilet at bus-stand and replicate the design locally to manufacture more toilets at cheaper cost.

Sharing details of another new project Punsri panchayat aims to take up, Himanshu Patel said, at present 25-30% of panchayat budget is spent on cleanliness domain. We believe that cleanliness budget should be zero instead. Maintenance of waste collection vehicle, fuel expenses, driver’s cost etc are high. If we can replace present vehicle with e-rickshaw, cleanliness cost will come down.

Patel in his speech at the conclave narrated the details of completed development projects in Punsri that are so far visited by over 3.5 lakh people from all over India. He said the key mantra is that, villages need to take maximum benefit of existing government schemes. In talk to DeshGujarat on the sidelines of conclave he said as many as 90 small businessmen have received Rs 50,000 loan under Prime Minister’s Mudra scheme. They have enhanced their business through this loan which they otherwise couldn’t get through banks.

DeshGujarat