News Brief
Cleanliness Is A Lifelong Mission, Not A One-Day Task: PM Modi On 10 Years Of Swachh Bharat Mission
PM Modi on Wednesday participated in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti at Navyug School, in New Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (2 October) said that mission of cleanliness is not a one-day task but a lifelong ritual and must be followed for generations.
PM Modi made these remarks while addressing a gathering in Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan on the occasion of completion of 10 years of Swachh Bharat Mission.
The Prime Minister urged state governments to take the mission to the district and block level.
“The mission for cleanliness is not one day’s, it is a life-long tradition. We have to take it forward for generations…This is something we should do every day,” he said, Indian Express reported.
Hitting out at previous governments, PM Modi said those who used Mahatma Gandhi for their political benefits and vote bank had not paid attention to his call for cleanliness.
Pointing out that more than 60 percent of India’s population was compelled to defecate in the open due to a lack of toilets until ten years ago, the Prime Minister said that it was against human dignity and disrespectful towards the country’s poor, dalits, tribals and backward communities which continued from one generation to the other.
PM Modi noted the sufferings of mothers, sisters and daughters due to the lack of toilets and also pointed out the threats to their health and safety.
He added that his government considered it a national and human challenge and launched a campaign to solve it and this was where the seed of Swachh Bharat Mission was sown.
PM Modi further added that within no time, crores of Indians did wonders.
The Prime Minister highlighted that more than 12 crore toilets were built in the country and the scope of toilet coverage reached 100 percent from previously less than 40 percent.
PM Modi also virtually inaugurated sanitation projects worth about Rs 10,000 crore across the country under various Central missions.
After announcing the cleanliness mission in his first Independence Day address in 2014, the Prime Minister launched the mission on Gandhi Jayanti that year, to make India open defecation-free by Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary in 2019.
