In its fifth year, the NDTV-Dettol Banega Swachh India Cleanthon looked back at the achievements of the last five years of the campaign and set the agenda for the initiative going forward. Together with Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, the annual Cleanathon has worked relentlessly for five years to help build toilets in rural areas, conduct clean-up drives and spread awareness about sanitation, health and hygiene across India. Every year the Cleanathon celebrates Gandhi Jayanti on October 2 as Rashtriya Swachhta Diwas.
NDTV-Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of India's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, with the target to make India open defecation free (ODF) by October 2, 2019, which happens to be the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
Prakash Javdekar on Cleanathon: While in environment ministry, I came up with many waste management rules. By the time I joined the HRD ministry, the campaign had become a public movement, with schools participating and some 6000 colleges that have participated in the campaign. We have also started scholarship for colleges to work in the villages and spread the message of safe sanitation.
Narasimhan Eswar of RB: We have with the help of the Government of Maharashtra, we have set up Harpic World Toilet College. We recruit manual scavengers and we ask them to go through a three week course in which we teach them how to clean drains with the help of machines without getting inside the drains and in these three weeks they are also paid a stipend equivalent of the money they usually make. They are also given training on soft skills.
Shaina NC, BJP Leader: Dignity of labour - we all talk about it, inhumane labour is simply not acceptable. Our government is very clear whether it is sanitation or manual scavenging, we are trying to cover all aspects.
I compliment @ndtv for taking a wonderful lead role in galvanizing the people to join #SwachhataHiSeva https://t.co/XwmAC5YC77
- Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) October 2, 2018
Afroze Shah, Versova Beach Clean-up Warrior: The biggest challenge is to bring people on board. We have to reach the people at the lowest level. We have to move the things at the ground level, only then we can make any real difference.
Parameswaran Iyer on Cleanathon: We just concluded Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation convention we had participation from 65 countries. The key lesson learnt from the campaign is the 4Ps- Public, Private, People Partnership. This campaign has become a jan andolan (People's movement) and is no more a sarkari (Government) initiative. Media has been playing a very important role in making swachh Bharat a people's movement. We are now focussing on ODF plus. We have made excellent progress and we will achieve the Prime Minister's deadline of October 2, 2019.
Sonu Nigam on Cleanathon: Public toilets are so dirty everywhere because we do not know how to use toilets. I am happy that now swachhta has been taking up a place in people's lives through such initiatives by the government, organisation and people like you.
Aaditya Thackeray on Cleanathon: It is a habit for us to throw things around but fortunately we are now also inculcating the habit to start cleaning up. We are going around and cleaning the beaches. We are one of the few cities having marine assets. We have turtle and other marine creatures coming to the beach in our city. We need to preserve it.
I congratulate the Prime Minister for bringing cleanliness back to our lives. We should remember that to please the God we must be keep our environment clean. People who say that Swachh Bharat Mission is a great initiative but nothing is coming out of it, to those people I say, we should take individual responsibility to bring about change: Babul Supriyo, Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
Swami Chidanand Saraswati on Cleanthon: We will be asking all the dharm gurus during the Kumbh to organise inter faith programmes on sanitation and cleanliness. Given the state of the river, before we bathe in Ganga we must give bath to Ganga, do not throw waste in the river and if you find plastic in the water remove it.
We are now moving from swachhta to swasthya. Health is very important, especially for women and they are playing a very important role in Jharkhand's improved performance in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Like Rani Mistris who are trained in masonary work, which is traditionally a male domain and are leading the bulk of the toilet construction in the state: Raghubar Das, Chief Minister of Jharkhand
I think we will able to tackle stubble burning to some extent this year. We have got the money from Government of India which has been invested into machines for the farmers to cut the stubble into pieces and dispose it of in a more eco-friendly way, instead of burning it: Captain Amrinder Singh, Punjab Chief Minister
Mahesh Sharma, Minister Of State Of Environment, Forests & Climate Change joins the Cleanathon
Kiren Bedi on Cleanathon: We have fixed the sanitation problem in Puducherry. All our 97 villages have toilets now. We will fine tune the facilities in the next 3 months. And we find that women are the biggest beneficiaries of toilet construction.
In border areas, it is much more difficult for women to go in the open, so building toilets in the border area is being done: Jitendra Singh
Dr Indira Chakravarty, Padma Shri, Public Health Specialist on Cleanathon:
When we talk about Swachh Bharat we only think about sanitation and hygiene and do not think about the health aspect. We need to consider how SBM is impacting health. To me water and sanitation has multiple dimensions. Contaminated water leads to infection, nutrition means food to everyone but it is just not that. It is important to retain the nutrition which is bigger problem.
When Prime Minister launched the program, people thought this will be just another photo op. But this has turned out to be a people's movement. Most important was the rural India which needed behavioural change, how do you get villagers to change the habit of going out even after toilets are built? Another big factor has been the fact that it has become a women's movement: Arun Jaitley
We have definitely achieved so much and we are proud of it.Earlier 40% of the country had access to toilets now its 90%. 8.5 crore toilets built in last 5 years.The stats point out that earlier 650 million people were defecating in the open 5 years ago, now the figure is down to 250 million. What this means is less diarrhea and less disease: Rakesh Kapoor, Global Ceo, Reckitt Benckiser
