K.K. Raman gave up his job with the forest department and worked as manager with the Care Trust. The urge to do something on a large scale for the society prompted him to start an NGO. Called Annai Trust, its founder Raman continues to work in areas like environment, health, education, and social welfare. But, health and environment remain his priority.

Of all the projects that has initiated through his trust, the most notable of them is the Nirmal Gram Puraskar, an initiative of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. Under this project, the Government of India (GOI) has been promoting sanitation through its campaign to ensure better health and quality of life in rural India.

As an incentive, the GOI also announced award based incentive scheme for fully sanitized and open defecation-free village Panchayats, blocks, districts, and states, called Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP), in October 2003. With the help of volunteers, Raman reached out to more than 200 villages in the state.

“We educated the villagers about aspects like how to dispose of waste, basics of keeping their surroundings clean and tidy, and not to defecate in the open. Initially there was reluctance among the villagers to change. However, with a lot of effort they have now started to follow the basic rules of sanitation and hygiene,” Raman says.

The efforts of his team paid off as they managed to bring in a transformation in these villages. And above all, more than 150 villages in Tamil Nadu were awarded the Nirmal Gram Puraskar awards. These awards were given away by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MoDWS), Government of India, at all levels of PRIs, that is village Panchayat, Block Panchayat, and district Panchayat, between 2007 and 2009.

The founder of Annai Trust shares with us that their team of volunteers continues to make follow-up visits to these villages to ensure that the basic sanitation and hygiene methods are practiced by the villagers.

Other activities of the trust include providing medical assistance to the needy during times of emergency like road accidents.