cleanIndiaessay in English
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As Mahatma Gandhi quoted, ‘Sanitation is more important than Independence,’ ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ or ‘Clean India Mission’ is a campaign that aims at cleaning up roads, infrastructures, streets, rural areas, smaller towns and cities of the country. The primary motive of ‘Clean India Mission’ is to uproot the open defecation by constructing community-owned and household-owned toilets. It also aims at building a mechanism that can monitor toilet use.
This mission run by the Government of India aims at achieving Open-Defecation Free India by constructing 90 million toilets in rural areas of the country by the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi (2nd October 2019). India will also reach Sustainable Development Goal Number 6 (SDG 6) by achieving this mission.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially launched this campaign on 2nd October 2014. This mission has become India’s largest drive till with more than 3 million college students, government employees, and school students from every nook and corner of the country participating in the campaign in cities, rural areas and towns. In reference to Gandhi’s ‘Champaran Satyagraha,’ this campaign has been called as ‘Satyagraha se Swachaagrah’ by the Prime Minister.
The drive has been categorized in two sub-missions, Swatch Bharat Abhiyan (Urban) that operates under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs; and Swatch Bharat Abhiyan (Rural) that falls and operates under Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
The volunteers of the campaign are called ‘Swachhagrahis’ or ‘ambassadors of cleanliness,’ who have promoted Community Approaches to Sanitation (CAS) at village levels and indoor plumbing. A number of non-governmental organizations such as ‘SWach Pune,’ ‘The Ugly Indian,’ and ‘Waste Warriors,’ are working religiously towards the Clean India Mission.
It is not the first time that such a campaign with the motto of clean India has been launched in the country. However, the previous campaigns have not been as successful as this. The Government of India launched the ‘Total Sanitation Campaign,’ in 1999, which was then renamed by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan.’ However, this time ‘Swatch Bharat Abhiyan,’ has become a national priority. The Prime Minister himself took the broom to clean the roads in order to inspire every citizen of the country to take accountability of the cleanliness of their surroundings which will result in a clean nation.