Swachh Bharat campaign to start in New Delhi tomorrow

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch his pet Swachh Bharat campaign from Boat Club area on Rajpath in New Delhi on Thursday morning where he will also flag off a road walkathon.

Five thousand school children, college and university students, government officers, diplomats and expats and representatives of corporate houses and chambers of commerce are expected to attend the programme.

Modi is expected to also speak at the programme and administer the Cleanliness Pledge to children and other persons attending the event there. The entire Rajpath till India Gate and Rafi Marg will be closed from 5 am till noon on October 2. Sources said Modi will take part in the walkathon with school children.

Modi will begin his day by visiting Raj Ghat and later take part in a programme at Valmiki Sadan, a Dalit colony at Mandir Marg. “The PM wanted a place associated with Gandhiji.

Since the basti was where Gandhi had lived for many days, it was considered appropriate,” an official said. The colony is said to have preserved and maintained the small room where Gandhi lived and has hosted crucial meetings of the Congress.

Modi is also expected to inaugurate new toilets in the colony, besides picking up the broom to clean a public place. In the afternoon, Modi is expected to record his first radio address, which will be broadcast by All India Radio. He has already sent instructions to government officers to work on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, a national holiday, to clean ministries — including toilets — as part of the project.

Ministers such as Uma Bharati and Ravi Shankar Prasad will travel to different cities to promote the campaign. Government offices located in buildings on Raisina Hill will close early on October 1 at 1 pm and after 10:30 am on Thursday for the launch.

The government has instructed all its offices to administer the cleanliness pledge at 9.45 am on Thursday. Aides of Modi recall that even as the CM of Gujarat, Modi has celebrated Gandhi Jayanti in Porbander, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, and had urged people to maintain cleanliness in their surroundings and buy ‘Khadi’ clothes for Diwali.

Swachh Bharat was one of the first schemes that the new government had announced, and it has since featured in almost every major Modi speech — from Red Fort in Old Delhi to Madison Square in New York.