Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda said that a special cleanliness drive will be carried out at all railway stations across the country on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on September 24 given a nod to Clean India mission 'Swachch Bharat', which will be operative for five years.
Gowda said that the ministers are welcome to visit any railway station on that day. He also invited railway employees to voluntarily participate in this gigantic programme.
"We have drawn up the 'Swachch Bharat' programme by the 28 (of) our units across the country. October 02 will be a great day for railways and honourable Prime Minister's vision of Swachch Bharat mission will be certainly success in railways also," said Gowda while addressing a news conference in New Delhi.
Clean India Mission will be launched on October 02 with an aim to create a clean India by 2019 by eliminating the unhealthy practice of open defecation.
"On that day we are going to take an oath, all our employees, ourselves, including the public who are coming there. We are going to take an oath in the railway stations on that day," Gowda added.
Clean India project will be implemented in 4041 cities incurring a total cost of Rs. 620.09 billion, in which the federal government's contribution would be Rs. 146.23 billion.
The programme consists of components for providing individual household, community and public toilets and municipal solid waste management in all 4041 statutory towns.
A total of Rs.18.28 billion has been spent solely for the public awareness under this project. The project would include construction of individual and community toilets across the country.
