Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: Ravi Shankar Prasad launches clean India drive

New Delhi: Union telecom, IT and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday launched a cleanliness drive at the Shastri Bhawan compound as part of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission).

The initiative is a part Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government's five-year long campaign to clean India, starting with Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s birth anniversary on September 25 and ending on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 2019.

“We aspire to have a clean India by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatama Gandhi. The mission was started yesterday, coinciding with the 98 birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, our ideologue, a great Indian. It is not symbolic, but is a new beginning in India to make clean India a mass movement," Prasad said in a statement.

“A clean India is the best tribute we can pay to Bapu (Mahatma Gandhi) when we celebrate his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,” he said, and asked senior officers in various departments in the country to take this initiative further and ensure that all campuses under his ministries have a new and refreshing look.

Prasad will also be leading this cleaning program at the Patna railway station on October 2.

Earlier, addressing the party workers in Karnataka, Modi said that government departments would be involved and the initiative would later engage all spheres of public activity.