Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Thursday said that the dream of Mahatma Gandhi’s Swachh Bharat could only be realised with commitment of people to make the state as the best clean and green state in the country.

Addressing a public meeting at Nalagarh in Solan district, Thakur said ‘we can accomplish the goal of ‘Clean India’ only when we will keep our environment and our traditional water bodies clean besides efficiently managing and treating the solid and liquid wastes.’

He said that the involvement and participation of masses in the drive has turned Swachh Bharat Mission into a national movement. A sense of responsibility has been evoked amongst the people through the clean India movement.

“With the people now actively participating in cleanliness activities across the country, the dream of Clean India as envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi has began to take shape,” he said.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of five years that is by 2 October, 2019 to make every village of India clean and reiterated the resolve to make cleanliness drive a National Movement with the involvement of people towards building a healthy India.

Such cleanliness drives hold more importance in industrial regions of the state, where effluent and industrial waste was in bulk. Cleanliness should become a habit of the day to all citizens, he said.

It was during the last regime of BJP when he was Rural Development and Panchayati Raj minister, the campaign of cleanliness was started in all 3,243 Panchayats to make every panchayat Open Defecation Free (ODF), he said.

HP was the second state to be declared completely ODF last year. As per Survey conducted in January 2018, as many as 296 districts and 3,07,349 villages all over India have been declared ODF.

Speaking on the occasion, Governor Acharya Devvrat called for dividing the industrial areas into sectors for effectively managing the cleanliness drives.

“Right from Parwanoo to Baddi and other industrial belts of the state, one sector officer should be appointed to manage and run the cleanliness drives effectively,” he said.

He said Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh would be the model industrial belt in the state if the initiative sustained in the future for a long time.

The Governor and the CM also administered the oath of cleanliness to the youth on the occasion and participated in the cleanliness drive at Chownkiwala in Nalagarh.