We are lacking in Cleanliness and it is an established fact today. This fact is borne
out by the level of dirtiness we see around every where we reside. Sooner we
admit this weakness publically faster we will be able to sort out the mess we have
pushed ourselves in. It ranges from personal hygiene/cleanliness to the
immediate surrounding cleanliness and further our tolerance to dirty
environment including our attitude to look the other way when we see dirt and
unclean environs. We as individuals personally detest participating
in community cleaning. Our apathy and personal
belief or notion that it is the duty of the government and
municipalities alone to keep whole of India
clean is the root cause of generally dirty India.
India is centuries old
civilisation with some of the best known as well some
not so well known heritage sites in the world. Any tourism
circuit with known heritage sites like ours is supposed to be a very much in demand
and attracts tourists from far and wide. But the Indian tourist circuit despite
having all the credentials does not seem to be very popular. The one and only
single reason for this stands out starkly and that is the lack of cleanliness and upkeep of these
sites. The dirtiness of our country is affecting our tourism in a big way as we
fail to attract tourists both international as well as domestic -
who like to visit clean ,hygienic and
well kept tourist spots/places and the
most important being clean toilets there. Add the lack of courtesy
of the tourism support staff to this the
picture of why we do not get the
required number of international as well domestic tourists the abysmal picture is complete of Atithi Devo
Bhavah. The level of cleanliness and
upkeep has to be compared and matched with the contemporaries tourist
attractive destinations all over the world.
Tourism case is highlighted
to bring home the effects of not keeping our nation clean enough but we suffer as
a nation in many connected ways which are mentioned:
·
Our
self esteem as a nation/country is hurt anytime it is mentioned at
international forums that we need to do more on hygiene, cleanliness, maintenance
and health issues.
·
The
health system takes its toll because dirty environs gives rise to many diseases
and most of it in the form of epidemics.
·
The
personal hygiene which is lacking gives rise to issues of personal
hygiene, skin and health problems.
·
The
international look and presentation of
our country is damaged when pictures depicting India dirty and full of filth
are splashed across the Internet.
·
Losing
out on Crores in revenue loss because of unscientific garbage disposal.
We as a community and
government have to jointly organize the effort of - Clean India Pan India. Here
is the catch – that why the govt should be depended upon to initiate action.
This can be achieved by a single action of the government by
which we can be trained and educated to
remain clean and maintain clean surroundings when we can start teaching both theory and
practice of cleanliness as a part of
school syllabus. Actually if we all develop a sense of cleanliness while being
brought up we will certainly grow up to
be citizens of a clean country. This cannot be achieved unless we make national
conscious effort to make India clean. The effort has to
have many prongs like:-
·
The
basic cleanliness subject has to be started as a part of standard school
curriculum with cleanliness as a compulsory subject from class one up to
graduation. It will be equally applicable to science and
non science streams.
·
It
should be a specialized subject getting technical, scientific, practical,
vocation producing and interesting so as to produce specialized educated and
trained cleanliness/environment protection experts.
·
It
is not a matter to be left alone to the poor SC and ST's to bear the burden of
getting employed in cleanliness sector. What needs to be done is that by
bringing in more modern tools and skills and equipment, advanced and updated knowledge
and training this sector needs to become an attractive vocation for everybody
instead of the present scenario where it is heavily dependent on manpower from
a few castes only because others consider it too dirty to adopt this as a vocation.
Actually we need to take these people
out from this misery as they are already suffering because of the following
reasons.
o They
are extremely poor.
o Their
health is already very poor and they are always exposed to conditions in which
the diseases are attracted by their poor immunity and they fall to
Tuberculosis, skin ,breathing disorders, cholera and nutrient deficiency caused
diseases.
o They
are already at bottom ladder of the self esteem ladder.
o They
are already deprived of healthy working environments.
The following suggestions
are made:
·
A
CLEAN INDIA TASK FORCE : Based on the pattern of Ecological Battalions of the Territorial Army
pattern for the complete country coverage to give clean India look
pan India. It will be easier to get results by selecting areas of extreme nature with
maximum return potential on priority.
·
CLEANLINESS
AS A SUBJECT: Cleanliness with Maintenance be made as a school subject from
class one to +2. This will result in children learning the theory and practice
of cleanliness. As a part of vocation education it will produce specialized supervisors
of cleanliness which we will require to man the cleanliness departments/drives/initiatives.
As an example - children in Japan wash
their own school toilets for 20 minutes every day so as inculcate a sense of
cleanliness in them and naturally they dirty them much less as they themselves
have to clean these.
·
INCREASE
WAGES IN THIS SECTOR: Make this vocation well paid as per the job related
difficulty matrix, skills required and demand -supply cycle of trained
manpower.
·
LINK
WITH HEALTH SECTOR SPENDING: Our effort and requirement to have clean and hygienic environments will reduce
the burden on our health sector spending. So actually we will be doing
preventive action of would be diseases by pre emptive action of ensuring healthy
and clean environment. In this manner we will save man hours which otherwise
would have been lost to sickness and disease.
·
TEACHING
AND SPECIALISED SKILL TRAINING INSTITUTES: We as country do not have any
institutes however rudimentary where cleanliness is taught as a subject and
training imparted because till date this vocation has been considered highly
unskilled. Other then private agencies and hotel management institutes where housekeeping
is taught as a subject limited to hotel
management there are no known institutions to impart training
on the subject of Cleanliness. Keeping the level of dirt
and unhygienic conditions a majority of India lives in
and faces every day we should have had one institute in every state to produce
trained manpower for this purpose. Vocational institutes like existing polytechnic’s
and ITI’s need to be upgraded and roped
in for supervisor and technician level training after plus 2.
·
UNIVERSITY
OF ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY AND PROTECTION: Even now we should consider
having a University of Environment Sustainability and Protection where
graduates and post graduates will be produced
for this huge potential employment sector leading to huge earnings. It is a win
- win situation for all segments where we get cleaner environments, we get more
revenues from garbage processing, increased tourist numbers lesser
expenditure on health as fewer people get sick due to clean
and hygienic living conditions and on top we get a place of pride in the comity
of nations. A well meaning corporate house can be
roped in for a pilot project to layout, run, experiment, structure and make
sustainable model for this type of an institute.
·
GOLD
FROM GARBAGE CONCEPT: This gold from garbage concept can be realized by resorting to garbage segregation, recycling
of garbage, energy from garbage, Vermin composting and composting for nutrient
rich manure for the agricultural sector. It is can be easily assumed that the
garbage from the 12 major cities if properly composted can easily turn 100
desert villages sandy land into rich moisture holding soil plus
the energy from the bio digesters which will sort out most of the problems as
being faced today of garbage disposal as a part of solid waste management.
