Sachin Tendulkar given Swachhta Ambassador award by prez

Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar was on Wednesday conferred the Most Effective Swachhta Ambassador award by President Ram Nath Kovind.

According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement, he gave the award to Tendulkarat the 'India Today Safaigiri Summit' held on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

On the occasion, the president said that the sanitation drive launched in the country had truly become a mass movement in the past five years. "Everyone from the prime minister to a gram pradhan has participated directly or indirectly in the cleanliness campaign to make it a success," he said.

Kovind said this historic success could not have been achieved without participation of every citizen.

Referring to India being declared as open defecation free (ODF) this evening by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said it would be a real tribute to Gandhi on the occasion of his birth anniversary.

He pointed out that though the United Nation had set sustainable development goals to be achieved by 2030, India would be completing it 11 years ahead of the schedule.

For this feat, every citizen of the country deserved appreciation, he said.

The president particularly referred to cleanliness as a continuous process that needs to be sustained all the time.

"We should not be lax in our efforts by being satisfied with our achievements," he said.

The president also urged that a competitive model of cleanliness be developed at village, block and district levels across the country to make further improvement in cleanliness drive.

He said on the basis of five years' achievement, "we must strive to achieve the goal of ODF plus by introducing technology in cleanliness campaign".

"Let us make the cleanliness integral to our collective social life to build a prosperous nation. We have to develop a thinking in which everyone will strive to make his house, street, village, town or city as the most clean and beautiful," he said.