Swachh Bharat Abhiyan | Clean India Movement | Is It A Farce?

Swachh Bharat?
What is it?

Is it something like the images of Narendra Modi holding a broomstick himself and cleaning some places in New Delhi going viral? Or is it something like the iconic star Aamir Khan holding the broom? Or some other diplomats like Priyanka Chopra posing with some brooms?

What is it? What do you think Swachha Bharat is?

Or is it simply yourself taking a selfie holding one broom and pretending to clean your roadside?

The great personalities may be stepping forward with some good intentions to be a role model for others to get inspired to keep their home and environments clean and hygienic.

But what about the administration?

Where is the presence of real good administration and mentally prepared, disciplined public?


Mere Messages Does Not Create Cleanliness

Today I got some message from HP DBTL early in the morning at 5:29 am. while my alarm was ringing to wake me up. When I saw the message I thought it could be regarding some special offer to procure my second cylinder either free or at a discounted price since the message was from HP Gas and started with the words "our honorable PM Narendra Modi".

But LOL!!! It was the same message that I got the previous day from our Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation 2, 3 times requesting to contribute 100 hours per year on cleanliness and asking me to send this message to all my other contacts.

And, this time it was from our state's honorable minister for petroleum and natural gases.

Do you think you can keep the city or country clean by merely circulating messages? No... Not at all. Messages are read and deleted.

Mere messages and alerts do not work here.

Most people do not like somebody guiding their actions at all.

Only Sincere Actions Work

Everybody should work from the basic point of cleanliness.

What is cleanliness? Can anybody correctly tell?

Most of us think to keep clean means cleaning your place after making it dirt. Is it true or not?

But that is not maintaining cleanliness. 

Cleanliness implies keeping your habits clean, civilized and hygienic.

I am always conscious of cleanliness and I never allow my family members to squatter the waste on floors or around my house. Never. Never would I do things like that. I always maintain my places clean and never give chance for sweeping and collecting the rubbish afterwards. So only we need to make it cleaner with a wet cloth or mop. That is all what we need to do.

Most of us need to learn all these things by watching at people who are very conscious of each and every point of this field.

Mahatma Gandhi was a great person who practised and lived the life he preached. People were moved by his way of life and felt ashamed of themselves to be present in front of such a great ideal person.

What I want to tell is why do we make it dirt and rubbish at all? Why not think before acting?

Why should we make our places, first of all, rubbish and then think of cleaning the rubbish?


Six Simple Tips for Maintaining Cleanliness

Let us develop some simple habits of keeping our rooms, roads and neighbourhood neat and clean. Here are some tips to keep it clean.

• Do not throw wastepaper or other rubbish around you either in rooms, offices or on roads while even on journeys.
• Keep the waste in the dust bins provided or in some polythene bags and disperse the waste when the dust collector comes to collect it.
• During journeys also, you should not throw the waste on roads or on rail tracks. It should be kept with you till the end of your journey and handed over to the dust collector or dropped in a garbage bin.
• Throwing water while washing and spitting at whichever place you may find are very bad habits. 
• Wash the hands or anything at the specific places provided for the same purpose and keep all surroundings dry and clean.
• Spitting in wash basins and washing it with the water is okay. But leaving it unwashed or spitting at any other place you may find vacant is a very bad habit. If wash basins are not there, you should spit in the earth place that may be available in your backyard or at deserted places on the way where it can easily dry up and leave no traces. But never on roads and walls of buildings or compounds.

The above tips are for keeping your places clean so that there will be no need for sweeping with brooms at all.

You only need to remove the dust with the help of vacuum cleaners or water soaked clothes or Mops.

Now, coming to the duties of our Municipal corporations:

Our municipal corporations need to do much more than just sending messages to keep it clean.

• Provide public garbage/dustbins at frequent distances for people on roads to discharge waste which are designed just like the post office letter boxes so that they are easily operational and hygienic also. 
• Collect the waste from homes and establishments and the public dustbins timely and regularly.
• Educate the garbage collectors/pickers to carry the waste in their hand pulled carts carefully without spilling it all throughout the way to be flown by air squattering all over the roads and entrances of homes which is the case presently at all places.
• The intermittent dumping points should handle the garbage properly so as to dispose it quickly within hours and should not be left there for more than 2, 3 hours as seen presently by me at some places.
• Many other ways of keeping clean are there like preventing overflowing of drains through regular checkups and through regular repairs and maintenance of leaking pipes, broken roads, etc.

So, once again, coming to the point of Swachh Bharat. Swachh Bharat is not simply achieved by one person or groups of persons trying to spread the message. It is a combined effort of both public and municipal administration with true intention and determination of keeping the surroundings neat and clean before it gets rubbish.

Swachh Bharat or Clean India is possible only when both our public and the administration strive for it sincerely. Public should honestly try to keep their home, workplaces and public places including neighbourhood neat and clean through good, civilized habits being conscious of others. 'Prevention is better than curing' should be the policy of all of us so that no need arises for cleaning it afterwards.


There will not be any need for brooms or broomsticks if all of us follow above tips.