"India, with 5,000 years old civilisation, amazing culture, beaches, back waters, hill stations and philosophical school of thoughts, is lagging behind in tourism," Tourism minister Alphons said.
During a function here, he said that the entire nation is a "garbage dump" and it is the people only who are dumping garbage so they themselves have to take the responsibility of keeping their neighbourhood clean.
"If everyone takes the onus, the country would become clean; civilisation is within us and if we don't demonstrate it then there is no civilisation," said the minister.