Modi calls for ‘Swachhagraha’

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday called upon his compatriots to start “swachhagraha” — a movement to make India free from dirt — on the lines of Mahatma Gandhi’s illustrious satyagraha that led the country to free itself from imperialism.

“Like there was satyagraha to free us from colonialism, today there has to be Swachhagraha to make India free from dirt… it can’t be achieved by budget allocations alone,” he said at the inauguration of the IndiaSanitation conference to mark the second anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).

The ₹1.96 lakh-crore flagship programme, launched by the PM on October 2, 2014, aims to clean up public spaces and make India free of open defecation by 2019.

Lamenting that no government since independence have talked of sanitation, the PM said it is not an easy task for politicians to take up the issue of cleanliness. “Every two years there are polls in some part of the country. For politicians and political parties who just work for the next election, it takes a lot of courage to take up a cause like cleanliness as any photo of a garbage dump can spell trouble for them,” he said.

Calling upon the people to change their mindset, the PM said that he has suggested to urban development (UD) minister M Venkaiah Naidu who also handles the Information & Broadcasting portfolio to broadcast “Swachhta news” on Doordarshan and AIR as it is necessary to spread the message.

Mentioning how it’s difficult to change people’s attitude, Modi narrated an old incident when he had helped rebuild a village in Gujarat two decades ago after floods. The PM said he was disappointed when he visited the place five years later after he found that the villagers were using the toilets as shelter for goats.