Mizo town shows how to stay clean collectively

Biate, located about 165 km east of Aizawl, is synonymous with cleanliness and after winning a string of awards for the best kept town it has now been adjudged the best city for innovations among N-E states in the Swachchh Survekshan 2018.

Guwahati: You can’t keep your city clean simply by making laws. The concept of cleanliness has to be a way of life. This is what a small town of Mizoram — Biate in Champhai district having around 2,200 people — has shown to the world. Cleanliness has become Biate’s middle name!

Located about 165 km east of state capital Aizawl, Biate is synonymous with cleanliness and after winning a string of awards for the best-kept town in the state, it has won the best city award for innovations among the northeastern states in the Swachchh Survekshan, 2018. Stated to be one of the oldest human settlements in Mizoram, Biate’s mission to stay clean had started decades before the Swachchh Bharat campaign kicked off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.

It started way back in 1956 when children would clean the streets at their leisure. The mission hit a roadblock due to insurgency until 2003 when the campaign got a new lease of life. This time the adults joined the children. The biggest benefit from staying clean is that unlike many other places in the northeast, Biate residents have not reported a single case of malaria since 2012.

Winners being awarded at a cleanliness competition.

The Swachh Survekshan report states, “What makes Biate cleanliness drive remarkable is that there are no strictly enforced rules here. There are no legal penalties for smoking in public places, for urinating in the open and for littering. People simply do not commit these civic mistakes.”

Deputy commissioner of Champhai district Vijay Kumar Bidhuri could not be contacted, but his counterpart in the neighbouring Serchhip district, Sangchhin Chinzah, was all praise for Biate.

“Most places in Mizoram are beautiful, but Biate is a class apart. It’s so clean. If you happen to be there and you throw a candy wrapper, you will find a young child appearing from nowhere, picking up the wrapper and putting it into the dustbin. No one will say anything to you. Cleanliness is a way of life for the people of Biate,” the Serchhip deputy commissioner said.

Biate also became the first open defecation-free town in Mizoram in 2017. In the same year, it was adjudged the cleanest town in Mizoram in a competition conducted by the urban development and poverty alleviation department.

The town’s Facebook page speaks only about its cleanliness campaign. A post in the page says that the people had nothing to clean for the 2017 state-level competition. While other towns sweated it out, Biate was busy in essay and drawing competitions for students to reinforce the habit of cleanliness.

A street in the town whose residents do not smoke or urinate in public places.

The Swachh Survekshan report states, “The story behind Biate’s transformation begins with the local leaders sensitising the people to adopt a holistic approach for improvement in hygiene, sanitation, protection of environment and overall development.”

Garbage trucks have been deployed to reach every corner in the town to maintain a high standard of cleanliness. Door-to-door campaigns, counselling and other such programmes have been organised for young and old, convincing them that Biate could only be clean if every resident showed the same level of responsibility towards this cause.