Let's Pledge To Build A Cleaner India This Gandhi Jayanti!

4 years ago, our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission to sow the seed of a cleaner India in the eye of its residents on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. The purpose has been to build a cleaner India that is free of all sorts of ailments. Cleanliness is yet to become a way of life rather than just being an one-day activity.

In the last four years, India as a country has made good amount of progress viz. building more than 86 million toilets for households and declaring 470,000 villages free of open defecation.

How Cleanliness and Hygiene Can Bring A Difference

Most of the diseases happen due to organisms such as viruses and bacteria. These viruses and bacteria often utilise parasites like flies and mosquitos to bring the disease to our households. Hygiene and cleaning the surroundings help curb the spread of the mosquitos and flies and as a result the diseases.

Besides the health aspect, it contributes positively to our personality. While we continue to strengthen the value system in our children it is equally important to let them experience cleanliness around. Keeping or promoting cleanliness brings in a sense of contribution to society and also helps them inculcate positive – life-long habits to keep fostering hygiene!

Swachha Bharat Is Just Not An Initiative but An Attitude

While most of parents may observe Swachha Bharat Mission as one of the regular initiatives, however, it has much larger and wider meaning and significance. A nation is just an idea, it doesn't exists out there but in the hearts of its citizens. When we maintain cleanliness, we actually promote the nationhood and unity. Such initiatives are a way to transform a nation from developing to developed.

The idea of cleanliness is inspired from the rich cultural ethos of our nation. In the past, some of our ancient civilizations like Indus Valley are exemplary examples of sanitation, drainage and hygiene. We built cities with automated drainage system and water supply when most of the world was busy hunting to survive! It's just that we had been a little over occupied for about 1000 years by outer forces which destroyed our cultures, systems, and scientific ways of doing things.

How To Bring Swachh Bharat To Our Homes

Cleanliness starts at home! Keeping our homes clean doesn’t imply that the waste is dumped outside. So, the next step should be keeping the surroundings clean such as the backyard, garden, parks, approaching roads, pavements, kids' playing area etc. If every home is able to accomplish this, then the entire locale is cleansed and eventually the whole nation.

Waste Disposal Management

Waste Disposal Management is the next lesson. Daily waste like kitchen waste for example vegetable, fruit peels & leftovers, damaged or expired household items for example batteries, medicine bottles and tablets, broken glass and plastic should be segregated into the below classification before it is disposed.

• Bio Waste – Organic and Recyclable
• Plastic Waste – Non-Organic and Non - Recyclable
• Glass Waste - Non-Organic and Non - Recyclable
• Metal Waste - Non-Organic and Non - Recyclable

An organized home is a sign of an organized family member. Children at home as well as in schools should be taught to have “a place for everything and everything in its place”. Cleanliness and Hygiene as a goal in life must be inculcated in the minds of the young early on. In their childhood they shall know and realize to be personally responsible for cleanliness of their home and their surroundings!

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