clean india

Clean India

The government campaign to clean India is going full swing. I walk along a village road every morning. Here and there whitewashed walls line the road. Not much is seen of the original white as it is defaced by political slogans, posters half eaten by goats and unmentionable stains. (The paan stains are mentionable)!

Now in every available space, in blue paint these words can be seen, “Do not pass urine here. Urination banned.”( not paan). It has not really made a difference. The men just shifted their activities to the trees on the opposite side of the road. It makes it a little difficult to jog. After years of averting my eyes to the right, I now have to avert them to the left. (I also have to change the hand holding the dog and my whip.)

Each household is supposed to have a toilet. A number of them have been constructed with government funds. Nobody seems to use them though. Whole families are out in the paddy fields fertilizing the rice.

“Didn’t the government construct a toilet for you?” I asked a woman.

“Yes “ she replied, “we don’t like to use it. It needs to be cleaned. My two sons, their wives and children all live with me. Who is to clean the toilet? Also there is no water-----“

There is no public garbage container either so plastic or paper litter is building up on the side of the road.

In Hyderabad there are public urinals on the roads. In Hyderabad airport the toilets are very clean. There is a book kept outside where passengers are supposed to rate the services. No passenger even looked at the form. I saw plenty of entries. As I watched I saw the cleaners entering “5 for excellent service “ themselves along with some flight numbers.

In Chennai airport the cleaning staff has found an excellent way to keep the toilets clean—they leave only two toilets open and lock up the rest of them. The harassed passengers stand in long lines waiting to use the two toilets. When they get dirty and flooded they open another two. They are either government staff or unsupervised private contracted labour.

Its all very well to want a clean India, but can we have water and trashcans also please?