Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Clean India’ campaign got resounding response from his home State Gujarat as Sabarkantha district sets a world record on Tuesday for conducting massive scale cleanliness campaign in which more than seven lakh people joined.
In Gujarat Cleanliness campaign started from Porbander — the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, where more than 1.20 lakh people took the pledge to maintain cleanliness in their peripheral areas. However, Sabarkantha district broke that record as more than seven lakh people joined the campaign.
The cleanliness campaign was conducted in nearly 1,900 places across the Northern Gujarat district and more than two lakh people took pledge on Tuesday simultaneously.
later on more and more people joined the campaign. All of them took the pledge to maintain cleanliness.
“Cleanliness is an integral part of Indian culture. If we respect our culture by maintaining cleanliness entire country would become clean,” said Gujarat’s Minister for Home, Rajnikant Patel, who is also in-charge Minister for Sabarkantha district. Patel said that what people of Sabarkantha did is inspiring for the people of other district too. It is our basic duty to keep our surroundings clean, said Sabarkantha collector Banchhanidhi Pani.
On this occasion, Mahatma Gandhi Swachchhata Brigade was also launched to keep every towns of Sabarkantha district clean.
A calendar on cleanliness theme as well as a mobile application was also launched to mark the event.
People took pledge at 1,202 primary schools, 227 secondary schools, 30 colleges, 218 banks, 58 Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) industrial estates and 58 other state and central government offices.
The pledge was towards making Sabarkantha district clean and create an environment for cleanliness and sanitation in the district. It was conducted in eight tehsils including the district headquarter Himatnagar. Officials of Guinness Book of World Records were also present. They took photographed and did videography of entire process.
The district administration has also decided to give uniform to Safai Kamdar. They were given a kit which includes gloves, soap, dettol, nail cutter etc. “The idea was to realize them that they are the part of extremely important work of cleanliness and sanitation,” said an official of district health department.