Determined to maintain the momentum generated by the Swachchh Bharat Mission, which completes one year on October 2, the Government has decided to convert it into a “Jan Andolan” through an intensive six-month countrywide campaign to be kicked off on September 25.
The decision for “re-energising” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project was taken at a high-level meeting of eight Ministers and over a dozen Secretaries of different departments of the Centre on Wednesday.
Sources in the Urban Development Ministry said that it was decided to launch an intensive campaign at different levels from the ward to the State till March next year to mobilise citizens’ participation across the country, particularly at public places such as railway stations, hospitals, tourist centres, schools and colleges.
These venues would also be ranked on the basis of the sanitation coverage.
Sources said that Minister for Urban Development Venkaiah Naidu, who chaired the meeting, stressed on the “need to further energise the campaign for visible impact with the participation of all stakeholders focusing on citizens’ participation.”
He was of the view that since the `62,009 crore-flagship scheme in the urban areas has stirred the imagination of the people across the country, it needed to be converted into a “Jan Andolan” as desired by the Prime Minister.
The flagship scheme aims to make India open-defecation free by 2019.
Those, who participated in the discussion, were Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Minister of Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapati Raju, Minister of Health and Family Welfare JP Nadda, Minister of Environment Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Tourism & Culture Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjiv Balian and Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore besides senior officials from various central departments.
Ministers and Secretaries gave detailed accounts of actions undertaken so far and proposed to be undertaken for ensuring cleanliness in the establishments under their control, the sources said.
The Ministers proposed grading of railway stations, airports, shipyards, hospitals, schools and colleges and tourist destinations based on the degree of sanitation for the information of public as such ranking would motivate towards improving sanitation.
A Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office referred to the need for separate sanitation strategies to be adopted for rural and urban areas. She suggested that in urban areas, habitations prone to open defecation, needs to be identified for an area-based approach for better results and stressed that priority may be given to areas where poor people live.
The sources added that Javdekar informed that his Ministry would soon come out with final notifications in respect of management of solid waste, e-waste, plastic waste and bio-medical waste, and this would mark the beginning of a significant change on the ground for cleanness.
Naidu said that policies to promote conversion of solid waste into energy and compost are under consideration. After its finalisation, municipal waste would be effectively reused.
Chairman Railway Board AK Mital informed that of the 1,500 major trains, on-board cleaning services have been introduced in 560 trains and another 400 would benefit from this service over the next two years.
Out of the 45,000 coaches, bio-digester toilets have been introduced in 8,368. These will be extended to 4,400 coaches by the end of this year. He said while retrofitting of existing coaches with this kind of toilets takes time, all new coaches will come fitted with bio-digester toilets.
Secretary (School Education) with the Ministry of Human Resource Development said that introduction of modules on sanitation in school curriculum would also be considered. Sources said that from September 25, which is the birth anniversary of late Deen Dayal Upadhyay till the birth anniversary of late Jayaprakash Narayan on October 11, an intensive campaign will be taken up from ward to State-level focusing on citizen engagement and steps taken by the cities to ensure cleanliness.
So far, over 4 lakh individual household toilets have been constructed in urban areas. The number of municipal wards reporting 100 per cent door-to-door collection of municipal solid waste was also increasing.