Continuing To Fight the Good Fight
One of the new buzz words currently in our country today is Swach Bharat. A variety of individuals, NGOs, organizations, private players, start-ups and more are pledging their hours and money into it. With the Prime Minister inviting people to participate in the drive, the Swachhta Abhiyan has turned into a National Movement. A sense of responsibility has been evoked among the people through the Clean India Movement.
The campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi. It aims to achieve a “Clean India” by 2019, on Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. To take this forward, the government involved companies such as Hindustan Petroleum, Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil Corporation. Corporate houses such as TATA, Mahindra & Mahindra and Reliance (ADAG) have volunteered and are part of it too. Their widespread reach makes it easier to communicate and improve implementation.
They are involved in the Swach Vidyalaya (Clean India: Clean Schools) a key feature of the campaign. It aims to have a set of essential interventions that relate to both technical and human development aspects of a good Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme. The same was to be achieved by 30th June 2015.
The Pipelines Division of Indian Oil Corporation was allocated about 16 states, in some of which there wasn’t a good link and work sync between the centre and state government. During the process of set-up to completion, a lot of spokes were put in the wheel for them. A wheel where all should ideally be working collectively to bring about the desired change everyone is working towards. The bureaucrats of states such as Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha increased the quantum of work, stalwartly disliking the idea of the centre taking any kind of credit. They promised to work according to plan and received money too for the same. Odisha received about INR 8 crores to work as per the mandate and provide facilities for the chalked out areas. As expected, none of it has translated for the betterment of basics for the common man. Whilst the teams from the Corporation are called ‘Modi ke aadmi’, they are currently running from pillar to post to get the utilization and completion certificates, but to no avail.
The insurmountable problems were in the districts of Kalahandi & Kendrapara. With being Naxal infested areas, the IOC team has put their lives on the line and continued to work with the intent to bring about change. There has been zero professionalism on part of the state government. Working in small towns, the team is walking on a tight rope. In some cases, the money was taken and no work was done. In other cases they are either threatened of being taken to court or are liable to be kidnapped in rare circumstances.
The Naxalites are seething people, who have an anti-government stand. They live on alienating large sections of people from the government. The people also lose faith in the government when promises made are not lived up to. With continued short sightedness on their part, there is a minority of people who appreciate the good work but whose voice has turned into the spiral of silence.
Such issues need to be addressed in a holistic manner and provided good governance. When the pressure is scaled up, the completion/utilization certificates will be received in time for the auditing process. The imperative element at the end of the day is to work out the rabble rousing. One has to be persistent if they want to do good wp as there are no quick-fix solutions. With the recent mandate in place aiming to do good for all, there should not be any kind of political interference. In the bargain, initiatives suffer and the very essence is lost. Never-ending politics ought to be out of the common man’s social responsibility. Doing good work in good projects is the need of the hour.
The mission started by Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had nominated nine famous personalities for the campaign. It has been carried forward since then with people from all walks of life joining it. Maybe it is time to have a monitoring body in place, to make the execution body answerable to for figures in reports. Until the supervision body comes into place, it is we, the citizens who have to take the onus and accomplish the indispensable through a pro-active approach.
