U’khand teen uses Mann ki Baat to send cleanliness message
A teenager poured all her disgust in a recorded voice message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a stinky, garbage-choked river flowing close to her backyard in the Uttarakhand capital.
Modi liked 16-year-old Gayatri Singh’s emotional appeal for her right to live in a clean environment so much that he included the girl’s speech in the 30th edition of his Mann ki Baat monthly radio address on Sunday.
He complimented the Class 11 student from Dehradun’s Ajabpur Kala area for flagging a public problem — the rain-fed, seasonal hill river Rispana, which has turned into a giant, meandering mound of filth.
Modi punctuated his address with Gayatri’s appeal to highlight one of his government’s signature programmes — the Swachh Bharat cleanliness mission.
The newly appointed chief minister of Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat, swung into action immediately after Gayatri’s speech.
He appealed to people via his tweet that people and organisations working earnestly for keeping their areas clean must bring their work to the knowledge of the state government through Twitter.
In his tweet, the chief minister said, “Our government is committed to a clean Devbhumi. You are requested to extend your cooperation in keeping Devbhumi clean.”
Sharing a few photographs of a cleaning drive of river Rispana in Dehradun, Rawat made a public appeal: “Following issue raised by Gayatri you are requested to tweet about the efforts made you under Swachh Bharat Mission.”
He asked the people to share photographs and names of the localities where cleanliness drives were carried out by them as this will motivate others to contribute too.
Referring to Gayatri’s claim that she had taken part in several cleanliness drives to remove garbage from Rispana that is flowing close to her home, the chief minister said in another tweet: “It’s clear from Gayatri’s message that she brought the cleanliness issue to the fore and fought for it.”