Need to propel people into action for cleanliness, says Venkaiah Naidu

Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Swachh Bharat' mission could not be quantified as it involves every sector and every work of life.

Naidu, however, said there was a need to further reinforce it and propel people into action for cleanliness.

Stating that the primary objective of the mission is to reach out to the minds of people and sensitise them towards the need for adopting right behavioural attitudes - involving motivating them towards avid littering and keeping household, surroundings and office environment clean and avoiding open defecation - he said, "Though the primary behavioural changes are essential for the success of the mission and the process is time consuming, the message has reached to the people as behavioural changes have started showing signs."

Naidu stated the Clean India Mission is one of the most challenging initiatives of Prime Minister Modi.

"The Clean India Mission is different from other initiatives of the government as it targets the minds of people while the other initiatives are largely success driven. While other initiatives are demand driven, the cleanliness mission itself is creating demands for sanitary services and infrastructure. It is the most challenging among the initiatives of the Prime Minister," he said.

An intensive campaign has been launched from September 25 that will go on till March next year in areas such as agriculture markets, vegetable and grain markets, religious places, tourism and heritage sites, education institutions, resident welfare associations, under-passes, flyovers, cantonment boards, recreation places, hospitals, old cities, main markets, government offices buildings and other public institutions. The ministries and departments concerned will focus on intensive campaign during this period.

"Under the mission, there is a target to construct 1.04 crores individual household toilets in urban areas, 5.28 lakhs community public toilets and 100 percent door-to door collection of municipal solid waste in all 78,003 wards and its processing by 2019 is our physical target," he said.

Naidu said Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana have been top players in respect of constructing individual household toilets as per reports received by the end of August.

Meanwhile, Naidu also hailed the role of both electronic and print media for promoting various success stories and sensitising the local bodies concerned, thereby creating awareness among the people.