PM’s Swachch Bharat Mission hailed all over world: Venkaiah

Union minister for urban development M. Venkaiah Naidu today said “Swachh Bharat Mission” has been one of the major initiatives of the NDA government under visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with others like Make in India, Digital India, Skill India, Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana, social security schemes, Start Up and Stand Up India and so on.

 

Participating in a program organized on the occasion of completion of one year of “Swachch Challapalle’’ mission in Krishna district of  Andhra Pradesh, Venkaiah said the Swachh Bharat Mission in Challapalli got accolades from different quarters in the country. Even the President praised the Swachh Challapalli mission. He said ever since the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on October 2 last year by Prime Minister  Narendra Modi, many places were competing to get good results in the implementation of the mission. But Challapalli stood out among the success stories of Swachh Bharat Mission.

Why? To my mind, it appears that the foremost reason for getting this recognition is, in Challapalli, Swachh Bharat Mission has become a “Jan Andolan”. This is what Prime Minister Modi was wishing for. When people participate voluntarily, any program will get this kind of extraordinary results, Venkaiah Naidu said. “Today, I salute all those who have been working hard to change the face of Challapalli from the past 365 days. I congratulate Dr D.R.K. Prasad and his team for their unrelenting efforts to make Challapalli as “Swachh Challapalli”.

Swachh Bharat initiative is different from others in the sense that this targets the minds of the people while others seek to meet the needs already felt in the mind. To put it differently, while the other initiatives are largely demand driven, Swachh Bharat Mission aims at creating demand for sanitary services and infrastructure. “Accordingly, the challenges that we are required to face and overcome for the success of this Mission are different from that of others and to that extent Swachh Bharat Mission is more challenging,” the Union minister said. “But our Prime Minister firmly believes in taking the challenges head on and overpowering them for the larger good,” he said.

“Given the unique nature of Swachh Bharat Mission, our primary objective was to first reach out to the minds of the people and sensitize them towards the need for adopting right behavioral attitudes. To put it simply, this involves motivating the people towards avoiding littering as they like, keeping one’s household, surroundings and office environment clean and deciding against open defecation. This is the primary behavioral change that is essential for the success of this Mission,” he said.

“As a minister and politician, I travel extensively to different parts of the country and meet people from different walks of life, age groups and socio-economic groups and I make it a point to know their mind regarding this Mission. I am happy to report that the message regarding clean habits and keeping one’s surroundings clean has certainly reached all, including young kids to the aged.  Several people tell me of their grand children narrating instances of how in their schools they tell each other of not to throw chocolate wrappers and other waste in the open as ‘Modi does not like it’. In my view, this is a major success of Swachh Bharat Mission during the last one year, he said. (NSS)