The half hearted attempts by government departments to implement prime minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Swacchta Abhiyaan’ has started to draw protests by students on Monday.
The students’ association at University of Delhi (DU) has blamed its vice-chancellor Dinesh Singh for not ‘properly executing’ the ‘Clean India’ campaign.
‘It seems that the VC did the formality by announcing the cleanliness campaign at the university. However, the drive has not seen any results so far’, claimed Saket Bahuguna, ABVP’s
state secretary.
He further added that the VC did nothing ‘effective’ which would contribute towards the
cleanliness drive.
‘The VC did nothing except attending programmes and events of Clean India campaign. We can see garbage lying around at the university campus. To add to this, there is no dustbins at the campus, forcing people to through waste on the road. Despite repeated reminders, no step has been taken to properly execute the cleanliness drive. This is a very casual approach’, Saket said.
In response to the ‘casual’ attitude by university authorities in executing the cleanliness drive, the students’ associations have themselves started to clean the campus.
‘The emphasis of our student-driven campaign is on awareness. We cleaned Chhatra Marg, Law and Arts Faculty, and other university colleges. We will take this drive to all the colleges and raise awareness about cleanliness among the students of the university’ said Saket, while launching his party’s cleanliness drive.
ABVP, the student wing of Bharatiya Janata Party, has also decided to give a letter to the VC demanding installation of dustbins at various place in the campus.
‘The DU VC, must immediately install adequate number of dustbins across the campus. There is a serious dearth of them. How are students expected to keep the campus clean, if there aren’t any dustbins’, he asked.
Rohit Chahal, national secretary of ABVP said if the university fails to set up dustbins at campus, they will mobilise funds from students and ‘do it themselves’.
The VC announced the Clean India campaign at the university on 2 October.