Launching the ‘Swachchhta Abhiyan’ at Mahatma Gandhi’s birth place, Porbandar on Thursday, state Chief Minister Anandi Patel exhorted the people to make the cleanliness drive as a mass movement. After reaching Porbandar this morning, Patel first wielded a broom and cleaned the garbage on a street leading to Kirti Mandir, where she also took part in the prayers on Gandhi’s 145th birth anniversary. Patel also posted a picture showing her cleaning the street on her official Twitter account. Below the photograph, her tweet read, “Launched statewide ‘Swachchhta Abhiyan' at Bapu’s birth place, Porbandar". “During the freedom struggle, (initially) people were fighting as individuals but Gandhi turned that fight into a people’s movement by bringing them all together. If we want to clean India, it can be done only through a similar people’s movement when each individual forms a habit of not littering anywhere,” Patel said. Echoing the words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the CM opined that Gandhi helped India win its freedom but the country had not given anything to him in return. “Let’s take a pledge to gift Gandhi a clean India on his 150th birth anniversary in 2019. Let’s take a pledge to inculcate at least one of the values that the Mahatma lived by, in our lives and present Gandhi a clean and healthy India five years from now,” Patel told the gathering of prominent citizens of Porbandar, government officers and teachers. Patel also said that as a woman CM, it was her dream to have a toilet for each and every woman in the state. “Porbandar has 19,000 households without toilets. As a woman CM, it is my dream to have a toilet for each and every woman in the state. We have decided to make it compulsory for elected representatives of local bodies like panchayats to build toilets in their residences within six months or they may face disqualification. We have also decided to make it mandatory for persons wanting to contest local body polls from 2015 to have a toilet at their respective homes as a pre-condition,” Patel said while speaking at another programme in Kadia Plot area of Porbandar to formally launch state-level programmes of Mahatma Gandhi Swachchhta Mission. The state government had launched programmes since September 25 in the run up to the launch of the national mission by PM Modi on Thursday. Patel said the state government had holistic plans to make Gujarat clean by 2019. “We are providing underground drainage lines in the state. The drains flow into local dams or nullah and villages in their surroundings face problems. Therefore, we have decided to set up sewage treatment plants in municipalities by 2019 so that waste water is treated and recycled,” said Patel. She got women to promise her that they will not litter and led the audience in taking a pledge to donate 100 hours for cleaning every year. According to tradition, Gujarat CMs, including Narendra Modi, visit the coastal town of Porbandar every year on October 2 and attend the prayer at Kirti Mandir.
