The toilet renovation project is an important measure to promote rural revitalization and improve living conditions. To further consolidate the achievements of rural living environment improvement, the Fengyang Town Discipline Inspection Commission in Fenyi County has strengthened supervision and enforcement based on its functional responsibilities, implementing multiple measures to promote the effective implementation of rural toilet renovation policies. Since April of this year, the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission has formed a special inspection team to conduct ’embedded’ supervision of the household toilet renovation work across all 14 administrative villages in the town using a ‘four not two direct’ approach, ensuring that disciplinary guarantees run through the entire chain of rural toilet renovation work, effectively enhancing the sense of gain and happiness among the public.
The image shows the staff of the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission understanding the toilet renovation situation on a household basis. Photo by Kong Xiaoling.
“Are there any leakage issues with the renovated toilets? Is the capacity of the septic tank up to standard? Are the farmers satisfied with the renovation results?” The town’s Discipline Inspection Commission closely monitors key projects, significant funding, and important links, checking the rural household toilets supported by the town’s finances through a ‘village-by-village screening and household verification’ method. They verify whether the registration accounts are accurate, whether the rectification measures are in place, and whether the use of funds is compliant, among other issues. Through on-site visits, document reviews, and interviews with the public, they identified 17 issues such as inaccurate account registration, inadequate anti-seepage measures or ventilation facilities, and insufficient tank capacity, prompting immediate rectification. At the same time, they conducted interviews with town and village officials who did not fulfill their duties, pressuring the town’s agricultural functional departments and village committees to enforce their responsibilities.
The image shows the staff of the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission inspecting the ventilation openings and covers of problematic toilets. Photo by Kong Xiaoling.
The rural toilet renovation is one of the livelihood projects most closely related to the lives of the people, characterized by a large scale, numerous details, and difficult management. To promote the specificity, precision, and normalization of supervision, the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission has comprehensively sorted and identified various issues found, implementing targeted measures. For the individual issues identified, the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission urges the responsible departments to formulate rectification measures, specify deadlines, and implement a dynamic management system of ‘one household, one policy’; for common issues such as poor sewage discharge, the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission promotes the establishment of a closed-loop mechanism of ‘inspection – rectification – follow-up review’, ensuring effective rectification through a combination of ‘daily patrols by grid staff + random checks by the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission’. As of now, they have urged functional departments and village committees to complete the household toilet inspections in their jurisdictions and fully initiate rectification work: promoting phased rectification of old toilet issues and addressing 369 problems related to the ventilation openings and damaged covers of toilets built in the last two years.
To standardize the performance of town and village officials and comprehensively improve the quality and effectiveness of inspections and rectifications, the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission has included toilet renovation work in the ‘micro-power’ supervision list, detailing the standardized processes for toilet renovation work along with corresponding responsibilities, accountability bases, and penalties for violations. They have engaged the local community to jointly supervise construction quality, clarifying ‘red lines’ to strengthen deterrence and guide town and village officials to use their powers correctly. At the same time, through deepening integrity education, they further enhance the awareness of integrity and self-discipline among town and village officials, building a solid ideological defense against corruption. As of now, they have urged town and village officials to conduct 13 promotional activities for the ‘Toilet Revolution’ policy, distributing over 2,000 supervision contact cards.
Today, walking into the villages of Fengyang Town, clean household toilets, standardized signage, and smooth sewage systems have become a new landscape of beautiful countryside. “We will continue to incorporate the improvement of rural living environments into our supervision priorities, using the ‘Toilet Revolution’ as a starting point to promote the establishment of a long-term management mechanism of ‘town-village linkage and community participation’, using ‘iron discipline’ to safeguard the ‘small matters’ of people’s livelihoods and inject ‘clean power’ into rural revitalization,” said the head of the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission.
(Provided by: Fengyang Town Discipline Inspection Commission, Zhang Huiyu)