4 inspiring stories that can motivate you to make your city clean

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a clarion call to Indians to embark on a mass cleanliness movement through his ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’, a campaign which was launched in 2014, aiming to take sanitation to every corner in the country.

Since its launch, many people have come forward, raising awareness about sanitation and cleanliness through various drives, NGOs, etc.

One such initiative, which is leading by example, was taken up by Adar Poonawalla whose ‘India Hoga Clean’ initiative has been inspiring many.

Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, world's largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold globally, is contributing towards healthy and clean India and is committed to the cause to the core. He started making a difference in Pune city.

“As a proud Indian, I wanted to make a change. I wanted India to be healthy and clean and environmentally friendly like Europe and the rest of the world. And that is when going for a walk one day, in my neighbourhood, I decided to make a change. I decided to pick up the waste through our trucks in our neighbourhood and then we went all through the city,” said Poonawalla

The initiative started in Pune with 170 trucks and machines and 300 employees taking up cleanliness drives covering over 400 km of roads in the city. Poonawalla imported new technology from different countries to battle the garbage issue in Pune.

“We imported the Glutton, which is what you see on the footpaths and streets, which is an electric vacuuming machines and also Trilos, which are mounted on Tata Ace trucks and this is from Belgium and Holland. Without these equipment you really cannot pick up waste,” he said.

Poonawalla and his team’s effort are paying off. He also developed an app which can be used to report unpicked garbage.

“I used to see a lot of garbage on the streets, but I was helpless. Recently, I came across an app, MY APCC. You just take a picture of the strewn garbage. Within upto 24 hours, the garbage gets picked and you even get a confirmation message,” said one of the app users.

Likewise, Bengaluru, too, has crusaders who are committed to make their city clean.

A cleanliness drive was initiated by Amit Amarnath, who along with his friends, founded an NGO-‘Youth for Parivarthan’ in 2014.

In June 2014, Bengaluru earned the sobriquet of 'Garbage City'.

“We had a lot of garbage issue in Bengaluru. We used to complain about it to the authorities but all in vain. This is when I and my friends thought of contributing our bit and became the solution to our own problem,” said one of the volunteers.

Youth for Parivarthan has been working towards clean India even before the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’. It started with five members and today has over 1,200 members comprising students and working professionals who come together during weekends to make a difference.

“Wherever you travel across Bengaluru, you see these red walls painted with beautiful drawings on them and I really wanted to know who does these and wanted to be a part of it. It was very easy for me to contact them through their Facebook page. So that is how I got to know about them,” said a volunteer.

The initial focus was to work on the environment sector and that is when spot fixing became a signature event of the organisation. Spot fixing is where they identify garbage zone areas, clean it, paint it and install benches.

So far, they have cleaned 114 spots.

The cleanliness drive is in full steam in Goa as well. Goa is known for its beautiful beaches and hundreds and thousands of tourists flock the state every year. With the great influx, it was required to clean beaches and this is where Drishti Marine took up the initiative.

Drishti Marine looks into garbage management, beach and marine safety and lifeguard services across all the beaches in Goa.

Presently, 250 workers collect garbage along the state's coast to keep the beaches clean.

“From December 2016 to date, we have collected around nine lakh kilos of garbage. On average day, we collect around 2,000-2,500 kilos of garbage,” said a worker.

‘TeraMeraBeach’ is a 150-beach awareness campaign to a cleaner Goa by Drishti Marine in association with Taal Inc.

The public awareness campaign educates people on waste generation and waste management through music and art.

“The way I see it is that government is only a facilitator to beach cleaning or a cleaning activity. At the end of the day, it comes down to each individual. It has to be a grassroots level movement. It cannot start from top down and percolate down. It has to go up from bottom,” said another worker.

When talking about cleanliness campaign, Mumbai also has an NGO, prominently working to clean the metropolitan.

One of issues that Mumbai is plagued with is dirty railway stations. Gaurang Damani, who runs an NGO Karmayogi Pratisthan, adopted King Circle station in December 2014.

“Nearly four years ago, I used to write letters to the railway department complaining about dirty stations. A railway official called me one day and said, ‘you keep sending complaint letters, why don't you do something’. So I asked him, why don't you give me permission, we will clean the station,” said Damani.

There was a lot of debris on the road leading to the station. The volunteers cleaned the entire station and platforms. Damani roped in few artists to make beautiful wall paintings with social messages.

They also planted plants on the bridge leading to King Circle Station.

“We placed over 50-60 flower pots and planted over 100 saplings in the premises. More than 700 volunteers helped us in the cause,” said Damani.

Making India clean is everyone’s duty and these inspiring stories definitely encourage us to do our bit.