The nationwide cleanliness drive launched today is aimed at creating awareness among the people of the country so that they inculcate a habit of keeping their surrounding clean, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said.
"This is just a beginning aimed at spreading awareness so that the 1.25 billion people of India inculcate the habit of cleanliness," Singh said while speaking at a function held to launch the 'Swachch Bharat Abhiyan' at CSIR-IIIM campus at Chatta here.
He said the Centre has launched an initiative to change the image of the country and turn India into a neat and clean place to live in and science will be used for this.
"During the Budget speech of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, we added a point that this ministry pledges to use science as a mean of social transformation," Singh Said.
"We have decided that school children will be taught about science and technology, for which scientists from 36 IIIMs across the country will spend time with school kids, educating them about the field," Singh Said.
The Minister said he started the cleanliness drive from his own ministry. "In only two days, we disposed of more than 60,000 files, some of the files had already been digitized and there was no need to preserve them," he said.
He said the cleanliness drive should not be restricted to just being a "symbolic event".
Talking about Jammu and Kashmir, Singh said after coming to power at the Centre, BJP has tried its best to remove the alleged regional bias among the two regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
"Now Jammu region too is getting various things from the Centre like the colour Doppler radar to predict weather was first installed in Jammu and then in Srinagar," he said.
"We have 60 months to do the work that was not done in the past 60 years. We have done a lot in the past three months and now we are left with 57 more months. We want 60 more months, but it will depend on how much the people like our work," Singh Said.
He said it was for the first time in the history of independent India, that the birth anniversaries of party leaders like Shama Prashad Mukharjee and Pandit Deen Dyal Upadahaya were being observed.
"The Prime Minister did not want his life story to be included in text books, as we don't want to force ourselves on the children. We want people to recognise our efforts and want themselves to read about us," he said.
