Pics: Joshwa D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JD)

Mangaluru, Jan 1: It is said 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'. Efforts have been made by the union and state government to make every village clean and open defecation-free, but still, in reality, in many villages of Karnaraka people go to open spaces for defecation, primarily due to lack of facilities.

Here's the story of a girl from Dakshina Kannada who as created a revolution of sorts in the Shettigondanahalli village of Tumakuru district by building more than 400 toilets in households through her trust and various government programmes. She is such a familiar face in the village now that she is invited to every function by the villagers.

Like most other postgraduates of social work, Bhavya Rani, hailing from Ananthady village near Vittal in Bantwal taluk, too had opted for a comfortable job in Bengaluru. But when she visited Shettigondanahalli to attend the marriage function of one of her colleagues, she noticed the lack of basic facilities there and decided to make people aware of the need for toilets and build them on her own if possible.

Daughter of Chandappa Master and Shankari, Bhavya took the bold decision of quitting her job and built a toilet in one of the houses with the two lac rupees she had in her hand, and started living in the same village. Since then, over the past five years, she has built a whopping 412 toilets, among which more than 100 toilets were constructed through the Shine India Trust she founded.

She has plans to expand her awareness campaign even to 22 neighbouring villages of Turuvekere taluk. But in the Shettigondahalli village itself, among the 1,243 households, 830 still rely on open spaces for defecation.

"I am not bothered about the time this work consumes, but I want every household to have a toilet and I am ready to go to any extent to make it happen. It is the urge to do something for my country that fuels my aim, and looking at my dedication the Shettigondahalli gram panchayat too has given me a helping hand through various funds for village development," she says.

Bhavya aims to reach out to many more households and provide sanitation facilities for them and thus urges the support of kind-hearted donors for her dream to have a clean India. She says that anyone contributing to her trust is exempted from the income tax under the 80G rule of Income Tax Act.

Donations may be sent to:

Shine India Trust,
A/C no: 061500101042291,
Corporation Bank, Kodialbail CPB branch,
IFSC code: CORP0000615