Though Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi has greatly inspired many in India, his dream of a clean India still remains unfulfilled. Mahatma Gandhi gave so much importance to cleanliness that he remarked, "sanitation is more important than Independence". The Central Government had launched Swachchh Bharat Mission three years ago on his birth anniversary, but there is a lot still to be done.
‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ is a common aphorism suggesting that being clean and tidy is the next best thing to being morally good. Apart from bringing physical, mental and spiritual health to the person observing cleanliness, it creates positivity, a sense of beauty which motivates. Gandhi demonstrated and insisted for individual and community cleanliness throughout his life. On Gandhi Jayanti October 2, 2014, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, launched a nationwide cleanliness campaign and exhorted the State Governments to achieve this by 2019 as a befitting tribute to the leader, on his 150th birth anniversary.
The concept of ‘Swachchh Bharat’ is to provide sanitation facilities to every family, including toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal systems, village cleanliness, and safe and adequate drinking water supply.
The State Ministry of Tourism is observing the second Swachhta Pakhwada of the year 2017-18 from October 2 at Gram Panchayat level. The fortnight-long observance of programmes are aimed to spread the message of cleanliness and make it a part of our daily lives.
Ramesh Bhateja, the brand ambassador of Municipal Corporation of Roorkee says, “We cannot complete the mission of Clean India untill we have people’s participation. I am exhorting the people to segregate the waste so that the garbage collected can be reused, recycled and thus reduced.” Administering the pledge of the cleanliness to the officers and staff of the Nagar Palika, I told everyone not to let Swachhta Pakhwada be an act of tokenism, but a programme that is done from the heart, he added.
Spreading his message on building toilets by showing interesting clippings of collected articles on toilets ranging from British Prime Minister Tony Blair proposing his now wife Cherie Booth in 1976 while she was down on her knees cleaning a toilet, Indian-origin American astronaut Sunita Williams talking about using toilets in space, Bhateja’s efforts have been recognised by limca Book of records as well. The 982 articles collected by him published in various newspapers and journals have been made in the entry of ‘interesting’ category of lBR with dateline falling in the period from 1996 to 2016.
Gandhi tried to exemplify the idea of cleanliness during his visit to Haridwar during Kumbh mela with his Phoenix workers who served as scavengers at the mega fair. The same year he visited the Servants of India Society's quarters at Poona where he was despised at, by the members of the small colony when they saw him cleaning the latrines one morning. But Gandhi believed that work of this kind qualified one for ‘Swaraj’.
Wherever and whenever he went in the country, he found unsanitary conditions in some form or other and said that though few could afford shoes, it was unthinkable to walk barefoot in India. It hurt him to see the marble floor of Kashi Vishwanath Temple set with silver coins collecting dirt and wondered why most entrances to abodes of God were through narrow slippery lanes.
Apprehensive of the achievement of the set target of clean India by the Government in next two years, veteran author and columnist Raj Kanwar says, “The ongoing "Swachhta Pakhwada" in Uttarakhand is going to be another wasted campaign. It was nearly three years ago that our Prime Minister Modi launched ‘Swachchh Bharat Abhiyaan’. However, the twin cities of Haridwar and Dehradun in particular and the whole State of Uttarakhand in general have remained absolutely dirty, if not worse, as ever.
This campaign is also going to be another photo opportunity. Unless the Government and district administration officials, municipal corporations take some initiatives in their sphere of work, home and community, to bring about some perceptible and tangible change in cleanliness, the mission can never be completed.” Garbage collection is a major bottleneck in the city which needs to be addressed, he added. When asked the city mayor Manoj Garg said, “As an awareness campaign, we have started spreading message in schools of the district telling children not to throw garbage on the streets and check others from doing so.
For garbage collection, door to door collection system is already being carried out in 22 wards of the district. Soon we are going to remove the big garbage containers and will start an award system for those who send video clipping of those throwing garbage on street and penalising the offender.”