"It is the 'beginning of a silent social revolution' to ensure a healthy and protective environment for all citizens through bringing the country under sanitation coverage by 2010," LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan said this while he was inaugurating the campaign at a function at Osmany Memorial Hall yesterday.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Khandkar Mosharraf Hossain, Mayor Sadek Hossain Khoka, State Minister for LGRD and Cooperatives Ziaul Haque Zia, State Minister for Environment and Forest Jafrul Islam Chowdhury, Environmental Health Advisor of WHO and Chairman of Local Consultative Group on Water and Sanitation Han A Heijnen, Acting Representative of UNICEF Kayode Obegbile attended the function as special guests.

Chaired by Secretary of the Local Government Division AYBI Siddiqui, the function was also addressed by Joint Secretary of LGRD Sayed-ur-Rahman.

Pointing out the frustrating situation of the sanitation coverage, Bhuiyan said around 57 per cent people pass around 20 thousand tons of liquid waste from their bodies everyday in open space spreading microbes of diarrhoea, cholera, jaundice and other diseases.

"In this situation on an average 342 children die everyday being affected by the diseases and annually the country has to incur loss of around Tk 12,000 crore including Tk 500 crore as treatment cost, about half of the annual development budget," he said.

"The situation has been aggravated in last few years as the 'Social Mobilization for Sanitation Project," introduced by BNP in 1991, was not carried out by the subsequent government, he added.

Underling the importance of behavioural change of people for a constant and sustainable health development system, Bhuiyan said, "construction of toilets and other infrastructure would not be a solution."

"Rather we have to motivate people who would use latrine leaving their bad habits of releasing wastes for his body beside a dam or ridges of paddy fields," he said.

Khandkar Mosharraf Hossain said the National Sanitation Campaign would not only help improve sanitation system but it would keep an important contribution to the whole health system.

Khoka said to solve the sanitation problems of passers by and floating people, 100 public toilets would be constructed at different points of the City Corporation with the financial assistance of ADB.