PM pledges to make clean sweep of nation’s eyesore public spaces

NEW DELHI — With brooms in hand, politicians, bureaucrats, police officers and citizen groups descended on the streets Thursday to sweep away garbage as part of an ambitious new effort to clean up India.

The country’s $10-billion US Clean India campaign aims to build more toilets, end open defecation, improve garbage disposal and educate citizens about the link between sanitation and public health.

The launch was timed to coincide with the birthday of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1948.

“We have to give Mahatma Gandhi something on his 150th birth anniversary in 2019,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. “Just like the whole nation united to fight for freedom back then, we have to work together to clean India now.”

On what is usually a public holiday, officials were ordered to report to work to clean their offices and grounds, and to take a pledge to devote 100 hours a year to cleaning.

Public spaces in India’s cities are often eyesores containing rotting piles of garbage along the streets, in neighbourhoods, public parks and playgrounds, outside air-conditioned malls and even five-star hotels.

Modi has urged cleanups in several speeches since his party won a resounding victory in May.

His campaign coincides with a nascent stirring among India’s affluent middle class that regards the garbage problem as a national shame.

“When we travel abroad, we are so impressed by how clean other countries are,” Modi said.

They forget how much they litter everywhere and all the time with out any regard for cleanliness. JOGINGER PAL STREET SWEEPER

“The secret of their cleanliness is the discipline of the citizens in those countries.”

Away from Modi’s event, Joginder Pal, a 26-year old municipal sweeper, cleaned the sidewalk next to a “Clean India” sign that featured an image of Gandhi’s rounded eyeglasses.

“People are always blaming sweepers like us for dirty streets. They forget how much they litter everywhere and all the time without any regard for cleanliness,” Pal said.

Indians generate more than 68 million tons of solid waste every year, a 50-per-cent jump since 2001, according to a 2012 report by Columbia University.

That figure is expected to increase to 160 million tons by 2041.

But fixing the rubbish problem won’t be easy.

India’s cash-strapped municipalities, with too few trained urban managers, are woefully ill-equipped to tackle the problem.

As well, about 46 per cent of the nation’s homes have no indoor toilet, 49 per cent of the population openly defecates and the rest use public toilets, according to the census data.