PM to launch Swachh Bharat Mission Oct 2
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the 'Swachh Bharat Mission', a campaign to clean India, on Oct 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The mission aims to achieve a completely clean India by Oct 2, 2019 to mark the 150th birth anniversary of the father of the nation.
Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari released the logo and slogan for the five-year mission here Thursday.
The logo shows a pair of spectacles of the kind worn by Mahatma Gandhi with the words 'clean' and 'India', and the slogan says 'One step towards cleanliness'.
The government had invited ideas from people for designing the logo and suggesting slogans.
Prizes of Rs.50,000 and Rs.25,000 were announced for the best entries for the logo and the slogan, respectively.
'The government has launched a massive campaign to sustain the mission and sensitise all officials concerned,' Naidu told the media here.
He said the government has roped in various agencies like municipal bodies, religious and spiritual organisations and letters have been written to all parliamentarians and state governors.
'The campaign will be kicked off from India Gate by Modi on Oct 2 and all parliamentarians and ministers will join through video-conferencing from their respective constituencies,' he added.
Naidu said Jammu and Kashmir has been exempted from the mission as of now due to the flood situation there.
Gadkari said the mission will be launched simultaneously in all the 6,50,000 villages of the country.
'I have written letters to zila panchayat and gram panchayat members as well as block level officers,' he said, adding that the government was trying to involve everybody.
He said the government has increased the grant to build toilets from Rs.10,000 to Rs.12,000 for each toilet in which 75 percent of the funds would be contributed by the Centre.
'A total of 11 lakh toilets need to be constructed,' Gadkari said.
He said the government was trying to link the mission to the Indira Awas Yojna and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
The ministers said the mission would have a duration of five years.
Briefing the media on the launch of the programme Oct 2, Naidu said that besides a visit to Rajghat to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, Modi would participate in a walkathon and visit a Dalit colony.
'Government servants from all over the country would be administered an oath, pledging to keep the country clean,' he said.
IANS
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