Swachh Bharat is a revolution playing out in real time: President Kovind

President Ram Nath Kovind, at the inauguration of three-day Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention, said the Swachh Bharat represents the spirit of our independence movement.

“Swachh Bharat is a revolution playing out in real time. As an instrument of mass mobilisation, as a people’s movement, and as a national goal towards which there is near total commitment, Swachh Bharat represents the spirit of our Independence movement,” the President said.

“#SwachhBharat is a revolution playing out in real time. As an instrument of mass mobilisation, as a people’s movement, & as a national goal, it represents the spirit of our independence movement” : Hon’ble President, Shri Ram Nath Kovind. https://t.co/60w4rS0ZHQ #MGISC

— Swachh Bharat (@swachhbharat) September 30, 2018

“Swachh Bharat is no longer a project of the government; it has become a project of the people”, said Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister (I/C) Housing and Urban Affairs

The Swachh Bharat Mission was inaugurated on October 2, 2014. “India is striving to eliminate open defecation in its entirety by October 2, 2019. This is the best 150th birthday gift we can give to Gandhiji,” President Kovind said. He further added that rurual sanitation coverage is almost 95% which at the start of the mission in 2014 was at 39%. Nearly 503 districts and 24 States and UTs have been declared open defecation-free. The relentless and strenuous labours of the past four years have led India to significant milestones.

“India is striving to eliminate open defecation in its entirety by October 2, 2019. This is the best 150th birthday gift we can give to Gandhiji,” he said.

Delegates from 68 countries attended Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention to learn from the experiment.

While emphasizing that political leadership, government financing and a people’s movement are key elements of the Swachh Bharat story, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “This is the role of good political leadership. It doesn’t merely decide on a programme, but it throws its entire political weight — weight of its politics, its policies, its finances — behind the decision. And that is what happened.” The leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ensured that Swachh Bharat was a government-wide initiative.