By Mayukh Goswami

Mangaldai  : Deep tribute has been paid to the father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi at Mangaldai on his birth anniversary on Wednesday. In this connection a day long programme has been organised by Darrang District Administration at Gandhi Smriti Park, located at Sankar Nagar Mangaldai. The observation featured several programmes including offering floral tribute and lighting of the lamp on the memorial altar of  Gandhi , performing of all faith prayer ,presentation of the devotional songs like Ramdhun bhajan  and delivering speeches on the life and philosophy of the father of the Nation and a children art competition on the topic ” Freedom Movement and Swacch Bharat Mission” among others . Large no of people including senior citizens , women , youths , students in addition government officials and staff took part in the programme . This was followed by the closing function of the celebration of the seventeen day long prorgramme called ” Swacchta Hi Seva” . Speaking on the occasion Deputy Commissioner , Darrang Ashok kr Barman announced rural Darrang as the Open Defecation Free district . Darrang has achieved the target of construction of 1,37,768 nos of house hold latrines across 553 villages under Swacch Bharat Mission , Gramin Deputy Commissioner in presence of ADCs Narnarayan Nath and Bidyut Bikash Bhagawati , freedom fighter Madhab Ch Barua , Principal Kharupetia College Dr Budhin Ch Hazarika and other distinguished guests offered cash prizes of Rs 25,000 each to Bar-Thekerabari and Bocha-chuba as joint winners of the cleanest village award for the year 2018 while Haldha , the  winner of last year’s cleanest village and presently bringing a revolution in cleanliness drawing appreciation even from the Prime Minister was awarded specially with a cash prize of Rupees one lakh as per the announcement of the State PHE Minister few days back . Cash prizes to the winners of the school level art and essay writing contest on Swacchata were also handed over in the function .