UNICEF offers support to Clean India Mission

NEW DELHI: UNICEF today hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Swachh Bharat' mission and offered its support to the government to successfully implement the programme particularly in rural India.

"We are really welcoming this initiative....We are really putting everything we can to support this initiative," UNICEF India Representative Louis-Georges Arsenault said here.

Noting that hygiene and sanitation in many Indian districts particularly in Uttar Pradesh are "very weak," Arsenault expressed hope that the new initiative would help spread awareness among people about hygiene in their surroundings.

He was reacting to a question on UNICEF's role in cleanliness and the new initiative of the government.

UNICEF officials said that the organisation's long standing support for improving water supply, sanitation and hygiene stems from a firm conviction and based on sound evidence that these are central to ensuring the rights of children.

UNICEF supports the centre and state governments in developing and implementing a range of replicable intervention models for sanitation, hygiene and water supply.

On October 2, Modi has launched the ambitious Swachh Bharat campaign joined by chief ministers, lawmakers, prominent personalities from various fields along with lakhs of countrymen in a drive that is expected to cost nearly Rs 2 lakh crore.