Intensive Swachh Bharat campaign from September 25 to March 31 next year

New Delhi: With the aim of re-energising the Swachh Bharat Mission, government will launch an intensive countrywide campaign from September 25 till March 31 next year covering almost every part of the nation.

Starting from ward level, the drive involving cleaning and awareness campaign will target railway stations, airports, bus depots, educational and medical institutions, religious places, heritage sites, taxi stands, markets, vegetable mandis roads and underpasses.

The decision for re-energising of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), a flagship programme of Narendra Modi government, was taken at a high-level meeting of eight Ministers and over a dozen Secretaries of different departments of the Centre that held a brain storming session on Wednesday.

SBM was launched with much fanfare on October 2 last year with many central ministers leading the campaign from the front in their respective areas.

After detailed discussions, an intensive campaign to be taken up at different levels from the ward to the state till March next year has been firmed up, said a senior Urban Development Ministry official.

Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu who chaired the meeting stressed on the need to further energise the campaign for visible impact with the participation of all stakeholders focusing on citizen participation.

He said that the Mission launched in October last year has stirred the imagination of the people across the country and needs to be converted into a 'Jan Andolan' as desired by Prime Minister Modi for desired results.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Minister of Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapati Raju, Minister of Health and Family Welfare J P Nadda, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, Tourism and Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (MoS) for Agriculture Sanjiv Balian and MoS for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore participated in the discussions.

Ministers and Secretaries gave detailed accounts of actions undertaken so far and proposed to be undertaken for ensuring cleanliness in the establishments under their control.

From September 25, which is the birth anniversary of late Deen Dayal Upadhyay, till the birth anniversary of late Jayaprakash Narayan on October 11, an intensive campaign will be taken up from ward to state level focusing on citizen engagement.

Ministers in the meeting proposed grading of railway stations, airports, shipyards, hospitals, schools and colleges and tourist destinations based on the degree of sanitation. For the information of public such ranking would motivate towards improving sanitation.

A senior official of Joint Secretary rank in Prime Minister's Office referred to the need for separate sanitation strategies to be adopted for rural and urban areas.

She suggested that in urban areas, habitations prone to open defecation need to be identified for an area based approach for better results and stressed that on the whole priority may be given to areas where poor people live.

Stressing on the need for behavioural change, she referred to the recent elections in Delhi University during when a messy situation was created with regard to cleanliness.

Javadekar informed that his Ministry would soon come out with final notifications in respect of management of Solid Waste, e-Waste, Plastic Waste and Bio-medical waste and this would mark the beginning of a significant change on ground.

Naidu informed that policies to promote conversion of solid waste into energy and compost are under consideration and after finalization municipal waste would be effectively reused.

Chairman, Railway Board, A K Mital stated that of the 1,500 major trains, on-board cleaning services have been introduced in 560 trains and another 400 would benefit from this service over the next two years.

Out of the 45,000 coaches, bio-digester toilets have been introduced in 8,368 and these will be extended to another 4,400 this year.

Mital said that while retrofitting of existing coaches with this kind of toilets takes time, all new coaches are being fitted with bio-digester toilets.

Secretary, (School Education), in the Ministry of Human Resource Development said that introduction of modules on sanitation in school curriculum would be considered.