It’s time public take on a better role in keeping the surrounding clean. In a major initiative Pavan Choudary, Managing Director, Vygon India Pvt Ltd, and India’s first women IPS officer Kiran Bedi have successfully authored a pocket book “Broom Groom” to spread awareness about the basic cleaning and hygiene habits that one should follow as a common practice. The book released in August 2010, has sold approximately 20,000 copies and translated into Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali and Telugu. It is being used as a personality building book by the corporate sector and the education sector. Broom Groom – is for the public – it tells people to do what they can do to improve hygiene practises and hopes that the Government, taking a cue from this public action, will follow suit
Pavan Choudhury told CIJ in an e-interview, “Post independence our government was not successful in providing the right education on cleanliness and the corresponding civic infrastructure. For example, people were told not to urinate in the open, but public toilets were not provided. We will also have to admit that the public who used the toilet left it so dirty that it was unfit for the next man’s use”. He said, “ The government campaigned for proper garbage disposal but failed to provide adequate number and sizes of garbage bins. It is also true that many garbage bins were stolen. The only area where there was discernible improvement was that of spitting. That was because of the anti-Tuberculosis campaign of the 60s which warned people that if they spit in the open this might spread the Tuberculosis germ. Tuberculosis was eradicated. But today spitting is back with a vengeance. It is a social phenomenon ahead of Facebook. We spray our streets with our saliva and there are no dry days.”.