The Congress on Friday countered Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachchh Bharat campaign by stating that during his 12 year tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he failed to keep the State Swachchh (clean).
Citing a CAG report related to solid waste management in Gujarat, AICC spokesperson Shaktisinh Govil said that the latest reports prove that it was not management but mismanagement and that the State Government failed to accomplish even after 12 years of his rule.
"Today he has given a broom in the hands of people and widely publicised the campaign through media and social media. The ground realities should be checked from nowhere else than Gujarat where he headed the Government for 12 years and now that the CAG has indicted some of the schemes which remained only on paper. For instance, 5096 Anganwadis have no toilets, states the CAG. There are schools where there are no toilets and girls feel ashamed to go to schools. Modi's claims are hollow as proven by none other than the CAG," Govil said.
Govil said that the beneficiaries of Indira Awas Yojna too have been cheated as revealed. "The fact is that district and taluka authorities had not ensured proper convergence with other schemes to provide all basic amenties to IAY beneficiaries. Projects worth Rs702.32 crore were approved by the Central Government with hardly any expenses on the ground," Govil said.
According to data available, separate toilets for boys and girls were available in all the elementary schools in the State. However, during joint field visits of 300 schools by CAG team, it was noticed that toilets were available only in 26 schools (which is nine per cent) and that too were common for boys and girls.
"As such separate toilets for boys and girls were not provided. Thus the data maintained by the State Government was unreliable and needs investigations as this could results in students being deprived of such basic amenities as required under the RTE act," Govil, who is a senior Congress leader from Gujarat, said.