Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan: States join hands as PM Modi launches country’s biggest cleanliness drive

Madhya Pradesh

Highlighting the need for cleanliness to ensure beauty and progress of a place, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan launched the “Swachh Bharat” campaign by wielding a broom in Bhopal. He urged people to devote at least two hours in a week towards cleanliness and also administered an oath in this regard to the people, and government officials and employees.

Meanwhile, Union Minister for Water Resource and local MP, Uma Bharti, who was in Jhansi on Thursday, said she will devote 300 hours instead of 100 hours annually to the ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission. Taking part in the campaign at different parts of the constituency, she said, “We will not take up the cleaning just for today but on a daily basis. The prime minister has given a call of 100 hours and we will do it for 300 hours to contribute in this campaign”. She also visited the Nagar Nigam office and administered oath to the employees to join the campaign.

Maharashtra

Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao gave a cleanliness pledge (Swachhata Shapath) to the officers and staff of Mantralaya to mark the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission here on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri.

The Governor read out the Swachhata Shapath to the state government officials in Marathi, a Raj Bhavan spokesperson said.

Uttar Pradesh

Noting that only a clean country can be healthy, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said every person should dedicate at least two hours per week for cleanliness.

“Where there is cleanliness there is god. This has been our old tradition, special emphasis was given on cleanliness in villages,” Rajnath Singh said while launching Swachh Bharat campaign at Charbagh railway station here. “We will make India clean by 2019. When the counry is
clean then only it is healthy. In 2019, on the occasion Gandhi Jayanti, we take a pledge to dedicate a ‘Swachh Bharat’ (clean India) in the feet of Bapu,” he said. The minister appealed to the people to try to keep their office and home clean.

Mizoram

Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla launched the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ at a function in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the centre of Aizawl’s Mahatma Gandhi Square this morning.

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Governor E S L Narasimhan launched the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ at the Raj Bhavan by administering a pledge to the staff. The Governor and his wife Vimala Narasimhan later symbolically swept the roads near Raj Bhavan. “People of the two states should take an active part in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and make India clean by 2019. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a call on Independence Day to every citizen to strive to make India clean. The aim is to build a clean India by October 2, 2019. The Prime Minister
asked everyone to take a vow in this regard. Clean India would not be possible with one or two individuals and it should be a collective effort,” the Governor said on the occasion.

Kerala

Joining the nation in the cleanliness drive on Gandhi Jayanti today, a month-long sanitation-cum-awareness campaign was launched in Kerala, roping in government and voluntary agencies.

Meanwhile, the cleanliness drive got a whole new meaning in Kerala. The Congress government in the state marked Gandhi Jayanti with Chief Minister Oommen Chandy destroying flex boards displaying his own pictures. Chandy’s rival and party state president V M Sudheeran also joined the drive against flex board saying the party would abandon the practice of using flex boards for functions.

Read more here: Kerala starts drive against plastic with flex board on CM Oommen Chandy 

Gujarat

Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Thursday formally launched the “Swachh Bharat” campaign from Porbandar and compared it to India’s freedom movement. To rid India of filth is as daunting task as achieving Independence, and to accomplish the mission of a clean India would require a mass struggle like our Freedom Struggle, Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel said on Thursday.

Read more here: From Bapu’s birthplace, Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel launches ‘Swachh Bharat’

Bihar

Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, Union Ministers Ramvilas Paswan, Ravishankar Prasad and actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha took up the broom to launch the Swachh Bharat mission in the state. Manjhi launched the Swachh Bharat mission from Gandhi Maidan by delivering oath to people to keep the city clean. Talking to reporters, Manjhi praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for launching the nationwide cleanliness campaign and appealed all to make at least 100 people aware about the importance of cleanliness and devote 100 hours every year for this work.
Rajasthan

Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje today launched the ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyan’ from Dhankya town in the district by inspiring people to make cleaning a habit. They along with other public representatives cleaned some area at Dhankya railway station after addressing the gathering.

Punjab

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today administered a cleanliness pledge under the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’ to government officials here. Addressing the gathering at Shekpura near here, Badal said that people should take up the cudgels of keeping the
country clean.

“Government has provided enough infrastructure and funds to keep the state clean. It is the people who will have to step forward, take the onus and ensure that we keep our cities as clean as the foreign shores we visit,” he said.
Delhi

Various Delhi government departments, municipal corporations and scores of other agencies across the city joined the ‘Clean India’
campaign with a pledge to implement the country’s biggest ever cleanliness drive envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Delhi Chief Secretary D M Spolia led the campaign by administering oath to officers of various department to make Delhi ‘clean’ while the civic bodies launched a massive cleanliness drive across the city to remove debris, construction wastes and garbage to give a better look to the city.

Meanwhile, Coal and Power minister Piyush Goyal said that one lakh toilets would be constructed in schools and colleges by the PSUs under his ministries within a year.

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah initiated the Narendra Modi Government’s ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ cleanliness drive here.

He ‘initiated’ the drive at the Raj Bhavan in Chennai, “on the call” of Modi’s mission to make India clean, an official release here said.

The Governor said that cleanliness should begin from each home and individual and appealed that everyone should take it as their bounden duty to keep the surroundings clean and wholeheartedly involve in the cleanliness drive.

Odisha

Joining the nation-wide ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign, public sector GAIL (India) announced its plan to build 1021 bio-toilets in the country to provide hygienic sanitation facilities for girl students.

While GAIL (India) unveiled its Rs 27 crore bio-toilet programme under Swachh Bharat-Swachh Vidyalaya Scheme here, other central PSUs like Nalco and Railways launched a series of cleanliness drives across the state.

Jammu and Kasmir

The Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Jammu-Poonch parliamentary constituency Jugal Kishore Sharma and other prominent party leaders including local MLAs with hundreds of party activists participated in cleanliness drives at various places in Jammu city and its outskirts. The former Congress MP, Madan Lal Sharma, along with local residents also used broom in various areas including Chandan Vihar near Muthi and Satwari Chowk.

Gujjar Maha Sabha, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jointly carried out cleanliness drive. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) district development manager, Surinder Singh, along with local villagers used broom and shovel to clean the streets at village Shahzadpur in Samba district.

Army troops also carried out cleanliness drive in cantonment areas. More than 1,000 BSF personnel under the supervision of their IG Jammu frontier, Rakesh Kumar, carried out cleanliness drives.

Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat said the ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission will be successful only if it assumes the form of a people’s movement.

Launching the campaign at Gandhi Park here today on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, Rawat said any such mission cannot achieve its target unless each and every individual contributes his bit to it. Several programmes were held across the state to mark the launch of the programme with bureaucrats taking a vow to keep their office premises clean through a weekly programme.

(With inputs from PTI)