Addressing the media, along with the minister, here on Friday she said that she had joined the Nirmal
Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign) to free India from the scourge of open defecation. Of the many causes, she chose this one as she felt this problem was one of the biggest impediments in the country’s progress.
Taking inspiration from the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, the Nirmal Bharat campaign plans to launch a “Nirmal Bharat Yatra (Clean India Journey) which will pass through five states beginning from Gujarat and ending in Bihar. To make the campaign popular, it plans involve film stars and cricketers. The campaign envisages holding village ‘melas’ (village fairs), where dance competitions of the likes of “Jhalak dikhla ja” will be held. “Our idea is to use entertainment to spread the message of sanitaion”, said the minister. It’s not a normal mela but a toilet and hygiene mela that harnesses the glamour of the enternatainment world.
“The Nirmal Bharat Yatra will be flagged off on 2nd October from Seva Gram in Gujarat, and it will pass through Vardha, Indore, Kota, Gwallior, Gorakhpur and Bettiah in Bihar,” Mr Jairam Ramesh said. He requested Vidya Balan to come to Bettiah in Bihar on 19th November where the Yatra will culminate. He said he would be inviting the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as well.
He said the issue of defecating in the open was the cause of several other problems like malnutrition. Unhygeinic conditions in villages lead to thousands of children dying due to diarrhoea. He said over 8.40 lakh women working in health organisation ASHA, over 14 lakh Aanganwadi workers, and 25 lakh women from Mahila Swayam Sahayata were being involved in this campaign. “I want this Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan of eradicating open defecation to become national mission, a junoon (obsession).”
Actress Vidya Balan has also featured in advertisement campaigns for the mission which will be aired on television channels shortly. Recounting her experience she talked about one of the slogans for sanitation- “jahan soch hai wahan shouch hai”, which she said was “very simple but profound.” She said she had the opportunity of meeting the young bride Priyanka Bharti who had refused to marry because there were no toilets at her inlaws’ place. “There must be many more girls like her, I am sure,” she asserted. And added that it was high time this problem was properly hilighted and not swept under the carpet, as it has been for the past so many years.
The Minister said that the Nirmal Bharat Campaign had been liberally funded by the government with the tune of Rs 1,07,000/. He announced that with the assistance of state governments the practice of open defecation will end in Tamil Nadu by 2015, in Kerala by 2013, in Haryana by 2014, by making use of toilets as compulsory.