Manu Sharma's blog.: CLEAN INDIA MISSION

***"SANITATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN INDEPENDENCE."* : *MAHATMA GANDHI***

Clean India Mission or Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is an initiative of government of India for the cleanliness and sanitation in India. It is launched by prime minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi on 2 october 2014,Gandhi Jayanti,145th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. It aims to make India ODF i.e. open defecation free till 2019,150th birthday of Gandhi ji.Under this mission, citizens of India are requested to contribute 100 hours in a year for cleanliness.

History of the mission : The Comprehensive Rural Sanitation Program has reconstructed to Total Sanitation Campaign on 1 april 1999 and then it has changed to Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in 2012. And in 2014 Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or Clean India Mission is launched.

Primitive Aim of mission : Under this mission, India is to be made open defecation free till 2019.It aims to construct 12 crore toilets in rural areas. This mission costs to 1.96 lakh crore rupees.

Now on the ground reality, India is such a place where the citizens enjoy a lot of freedom. In India spitting on the roads, urinating on the walls, throwing waste and empty packets from running cars etc are too common. In India we have a Domestic Waste Management System according to which we keep our houses clean and on the other hand throw the whole waste on the roads or in nearby areas.

And when we came to know that environment is getting polluted,there is waste everywhere then we come to remember our social responsibility and then we blame our government ,municipal corporations and related workers for the whole fault. And if that was not sufficient, we use a great tool called as #tag . We write a lot of complaints about the whole mismanagement and all and put our long posts on the social media. But seriously we do nothing on the ground to eradicate the problem.Cleanliness can't be achieved by these all. We have to work hard on the field for that.

But even after all this,the Clean India Mission has contributed in changing the mindset of people.It is true that some people are continuously saying that Clean India Mission can not do anything and their logic behind this is that "yeh India hai.....yahan esa hi hota hai.....log nahin sudhrenge". I think we should ignore all this bullshit because small initiatives are necessary for a big change and Clean India Mission is like that one initiative in the field of sanitation and cleanliness.

Today, a boy of 1st standard also knows that he has to throw the pencil shavings in the dustbin after sharping his pencil. The "Kachda Gadi" is running in the morning and evening times to collect the wastage from houses and shops.The dustbins are placed by the govt. bodies at various places in the cities.There is an arrangement of awareness programs in the schools and colleges regarding cleanliness. And people are also participating in the activities in order to clean their surroundings. So all this shows that mindset of people is changing.

Lets take the example of Sikkim . Sikkim is the ranked 1st state in India in cleanliness.

here, the mindset of people is very positive regarding sanitation.
here, smoking is banned in open and govt. has constructed separate smoking rooms for smokers so that they can go there and smoke.
there is an"Anti Spitting Policy" here according to which if you spit on road then there is a fine of 200 rupees.
here,there is a system that every taxi driver carries a mobile dustbin in the taxi.

The corporate sectors have also come forward to help in eradicating the problem. TCS, Mahindra Group , Rotary International have pledged to construct 3195 toilets. 71 PSUs have said to construct 86781 toilets. Govt. is giving 12000 rupees to a BPL families to construct a toilet in their houses. 17387 pledges have been taken under this mission to clean India. 12477 active participants are there under this scheme.

So, all these things prove that people are thinking about cleanliness and sanitation. Mindset of people is changing . Its true that it is on slow rate but still change is going on. For inspiring people, govt. has invited some public figures as Kapil Sharma, Priyanka Chopra, Sachin Tendulkar,Saurabh Ganguli, Kiran Bedi etc.

But afterall we have to think about our country. We have to work together to make India clean beacuse if we would not take care of our land then who would do that ? So, lets participate in this beautiful mission. Keep yourself, your houses, your city,your state clean and in the manner you will contribute in making India clean. So, lets come together and take good step in the field of cleanliness and sanitation.

"swachh bharat : ek kadam swachhta ki ore"