The Swachh Bharat index released by the Ministry of Urban Development in August this year found that Rajasthan's major tourist cities fare badly.
A year after the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was flagged off, Rajasthan has little reason to celebrate with its cities faring poorly in the national cleanliness index. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje chose to mark the occasion by arriving at a district hospital for an unannounced inspection.
After meeting patients, the chief minister picked up a mop and wiped a stretch of the hospital floor at Sawai Madhopur, about 150 kilomteres from Jaipur. She then asked lawmaker Sukhbir Singh Jaunpuria and legislator Diya Kumari to do the same.
"It's merely a symbolic gesture," said the chief minister. "If I can do it, why can't everybody else, I am not asking people to sweep the streets but keep your homes and city clean because Rajasthan is a tourist state and if tourists come here and see clean cities they feel good," she said.
The legislator from Sawai Madhopur Diya Kumari said, "Our chief minister is committed to this issue of cleanliness and it's not just about a photo op. In Sawai Madhopur, we have signed a contract for door-to-door garbage collection and are soon going to set up a system of waste management."
But the Congress says this is merely an image building exercise especially since the Centre's own Swachh Bharat index released by the Ministry of Urban Development in August this year found that Rajasthan's major tourist cities fare badly.
"This is just a farce. It is nothing more than a photoshoot. Their own (BJP) government's assessment says cities in Rajasthan are among the dirtiest in India," Congress spokesperson Archana Sharma said.
Rajasthan's capital city Jaipur scored a low 370 out of the 476 cities surveyed in the country. Udaipur, another tourists popular destination, fared even worse scoring 417 while Jodhpur was at 337.