From ICICI Bank to SBI chief, bankers wield brooms, pledge for clean India

The heads of the country's two largest lenders today picked up brooms on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary, and pledged resources and money to make the government's 'Clean India' drive a success.

ICICI Bank's chief executive Chanda Kochhar announced a plan to train 1.5 lakh individuals for sanitation, health and hygiene awareness programme over the next one month.

SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said they will increase digital banking to reduce the use of paper which will help the environment as well as lead to better cleanliness.

Lead by Bhattacharya, around 250 senior employees of SBI cleaned the area around the Girgaum Chowpatty in the heart of the city, while Kochhar and her senior management officials cleaned the area near its branch in the Backbay Reclamation area of the city.

On the occasion, Bhattacharya said the drive will hopefully encourage everyone to come together and help turn Mahatma Gandhi's dream of a clean India into a reality.

ICICI Bank's chief executive Chanda Kochhar. Photo: Kamlesh Pednekar

"SBI's commitment towards digital banking is another way of supporting a clean India as less usage of paper will lead to a lot of reduction in waste and making the environment healthy and a clean place to live," she said.

Kochhar said in November 2014, ICICI Bank adopted the 'Clean India Mission' and since then on every working day, the employees of one branch of the bank have been participating in the initiative by cleaning the area surrounding their office.

"So far, 6,000 of our employees have cleaned the areas near 800 of our branches in over 130 cities," she said.

Starting tomorrow, ICICI will also organise multiple sanitation, health and hygiene training modules which will be conducted across all the 24 urban centres and over 200 rural centres of ICICI Academy for Skills, and 17 rural self- employment training institutes, she said.

Tomorrow alone, they will train over 15,000 individuals, she said.

The bank, through its efforts, aims to train nearly 1.5 lakh people over the next month alone, Kochhar said.

Bhattacharya said the SBI workforce will carry out similar clean-up activities elsewhere.

"SBI aims to improve the quality of life and make the country sustainable by carrying forward this initiative on a regular basis," she said.

Uday Kotak. Photo: Kamlesh Pednekar