Annual sanitary report of the Province of Assam.

  • Assam
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual sanitary report of the Province of Assam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/52 page 16
    purposes proper. It would assist in considering the relative distribution of expenditure on these different heads, if a separate column were introduced for conservancy charges alone, and if road-cleansing and watering charges were sejiarately shown or included in column 9, where it more properly belongs. The heading “ Treatment of the sick ” in the Municipal budget represents the amount of the contribution made to the charitable dispensary, and it is not, strictly speaking, a sanitary charge and should not be shown under the sanitary heads of the Municipal budget. In surveying the problems of municipal sanitation it becomes increasingly clear that our activities in this direction depend largely upon the financial resources of the towns. While these are undeniably small, there is no doubt that, by raising the scale of taxation in many cases, more money might he raised for these purposes than is at present available. It is satisfactory to find that in many cases this is being realised and that the rate of taxation is being raised to meet the demands upon income which new water- supplies and better conservancy impose, but the bed-rock fact that no sanitary improve¬ ments can be carried out without paying for them cannot be too often or too emphatically reiterated. During the year under review, considerable advance has been made towards providing larger towns with pipe water-supplies, and the conservancy arrangements, which were hitherto very primitive and inefficient, have, as the result of careful review of their defects, and with the aid of help from Government, been re-modelled and expanded. Much, however, remains to be done in this department of work, the importance of which has been clearly demonstrated by modern research. The condition of private latrines has received attention during the year and the Municipality of Jorhat has been particularly successful in introducing a reasonably sanitary pattern of private latrine, costing about Its. 16, a price which is within the means of all but the poorest house¬ holders. Although to the scientific sanitarian these matters may seem but the A. B. 0. of sanitary effort and the need for them so obvious as to be self-evident, yet in their introduction much inertia and opposition has to be overcome. That this inertia is being overcome in such matters, trivial as they may appear, is an earnest of real advance, containing a promise of progression from small matters to greater improve¬ ments in the future. The subjoined table shows the municipal expenditure on sanitary purposes during the year 1914, as compared with that of 1913 :— Heads of expenditure. Total expenditure. Difference. 1014. 1913. Increase. Decrease. 1 a 8 4 5 Es. Es. Es. Es, 1. Conservancy, including establishment road-watering, latrines, etc. 1,37,441 1,18,983 18,458 2. Drainage 15,962 13,137 2,825 3. Water-supply ... 63,324 73,162 9,828 4. Disposal of tlie dead 317 119 198 5. Markets and slaughter-houses 6,732 12,208 6,476 6. Treatment of the sick 15,647 16,103 456 7. Vaccination 1,336 1,106 230 8. Other sanitary works 6,126 8,494 1,632 Total 2,44,885 2,38,302 23,343 16,760 9. Construction and maintenance of roads... 1,25,191 66,467 68,724 Total, including roads 3,70,076 3,04,769 82,067 16,760
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3