On Thursday the central government announced that Indore is the India’s cleanest cities according to Swachh Index 2017. But interestingly Uttar Pradesh cities finish at the bottom. The Swachh Bharat survey revealed that most populous state Uttar Pradesh is also the filthiest. After that Chief Minister Yogi decided to take the matter into his own hands. To encourage the citizens of Uttar Pradesh to participate in Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, Adityanath organized a cleanliness drive in Balu Adda colony of Lucknow.
Armed with a broom Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today swept the streets of Lucknow, along with his cabinet ministers. He even promised to make his state open defecation free by 2018. CM Yogi also interacted with local police and directed the officials present to ensure that polyethylene was banned. He specially told all the corporations to ensure that their areas were clean. CM Adityanath, cabinet minister Suresh Khanna and others started at 7:00 AM in the morning in central Lucknow. Fifty municipal workers were also there in the initiative.
Only one city of Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi, had figured in the list of 100 clean cities in the ‘Swachh Survekshan Index 2017’. 9 others were among the fifteen dirtiest cities in the country. Yesterday Adityanath said, “Although the survey was taken up before we took over, our govt. has decided to work in the area and we aim to declare 30 districts by Dec-2017 and by October 2018 the entire state Open Defecation Free (ODF)”.
Uttar Pradesh got rather unflattering numbers on all cleanliness parameters in the survey launched by the urban development ministry. Gonda is the dirtiest city according to the list of the survey. Except for Varanasi, no other UP city made it to the top 100. Total 62 cities were surveyed and 50 cities ranked below 300.
Soon after taking charge of the UP, chief minister Yogi administered a pledge of cleanliness to officials and asked them to clean up their neighborhoods and commit hundred hours every year for the initiative. The head of Uttar Pradesh has resolved to change the face of Uttar Pradesh.
Blaming the previous Government of Samajwadi Party (SP) for the dumps of garbage and dirty surroundings, Yogi said that all this will not be tolerated. According to him, this drive by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government will be taken up as a mission soon. He pointed out that not a single city in the state was Open Defecation Free (ODF) till date and he set the target to make the entire Uttar Pradesh ODF by 2018. He also added, only 8 percent of the target numbers of toilets were constructed under the earlier SP government. The SP government of Akhilesh Yadav had spent only twenty-one percent of the funds allocated for their construction, which was hopeless.
