After Railways, Airports Authority of India takes off on 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan'

NEW DELHI: The Public sector undertakings (PSUs) in the country seem to have woken up to achieve targets set in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or clean India campaign that aims to achieve a clean India by October 2, 2019.

After Indian Railways, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has also decided to survey the cleanliness at its airports by asking the users and has also institutionalised a best maintained airport award. "About 80 per cent weightage directly or indirectly is being given to cleanliness in the award and the rest 20 per cent is to surprise visits by senior officials, who will focus on cleanliness at airports during their checks," said a senior AAI official, who did not want to be identified.

As a part of the effort, the ministry is in the process of instituting a cleanliness award for airports in three categories -those with an annual capacity of above 10 mi llion passengers, those between 1 million and 10 million and those below 1 million.

This will be the first time in the country that the airports compete with each other on cleanliness, the official added.

Cleanliness at airports managed by AAI became a concern for the ministry , after several members of Parliament last year complained about deplorable hygiene.The civil aviation ministry had then conducted surprise checks across airports in the country to see if service standards were being followed.

The official explained that AAI is separately working at awarding separate cleanliness contracts for toilets and terminal buildings to ensure that toilets at airports are cleaner.

"A separate contract for toilet would mean cleaning of toilets at frequent intervals, which would immediately ensure cleanliness at toilets. We have sought approvals for the same and will start doing it soon," said a senior AAI official.