‘Come Clean India’

On a February Sunday, hundreds of students and volunteers armed with brooms and shovels spruced up the area around Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial at Rajghat at the launch of a think tank’s national cleanliness campaign in the Capital. For its “Come, Clean India” campaign to promote cleanliness at public places, Delhi-based Imagindia brought together students, government officials and volunteers from various walks of life. The campaign is going to be year-long and the volunteers we will try to sensitise people on the need to have clean public places. “It is important not just for citizens, but also for the reputation of a country that has so many tourists coming in every year,” feels Imagindia. Nearly 25 students from the National Cadet Corps and over 100 volunteers and students from Delhi University and Imagindia participated in the campaign. The volunteers would be targeting the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in March. The cleaning operations will be extended to other cities including Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore, followed by smaller towns. The targets for cleanliness would be railway stations, bus stops, government hospitals and tourist spots. The campaign, designed to run over 20 Sundays in a year all across the country, will rely on 100 volunteers at each designated venue.