People fail PM’s Swachchh Bharat mission at Red Fort

New Delhi: Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at length about the Swachchh Bharat Abhiyaan in his 72nd Independence Day speech, trash of plastic bottles and banana peels graced the Red Fort grounds, with people blaming the lack of arrangements for garbage disposal.

Heaps of plastic water bottles and banana peels lay scattered on the grounds of the Red Fort in various enclosures for public and children after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day address.

In his address, Mr Modi had said his government’s Swachchh Bharat mission was recently applauded by World Health Organisation (WHO).

However, the venue for the Independence Day celebrations made a mockery of the claims. There were arrangements of a few cartons which were makeshift dustbins at the 17th-century Mughal monument, but they didn’t appear to be enough.

The dustbins eventually overflowed, forcing school children to throw garbage on the grounds.

“There was no proper system for garbage disposal despite he being the flag bearer of cleanliness. The entire area seems to be a junkyard,” said a visitor.

“The entire area looked like a dump yard. I simply fail to understand why they did not make some arrangement for disposal of trash,” said another teacher, Rashmi Guha.

However, another visitor said it should be the duty of everyone to take care of their trash. “Why should we litter if dustbins are full. People can take the trash home. It should come from within us we cannot put everything on Mr Modi,” said Gursimran.

The students were distributed refreshments, including bananas and wafers, after the programme and in the absence of trash bins, they disposed them off at the spot.

The government had resolved to eliminate single-use plastic from India by 2022 to deal with plastic pollution. At an event organised to mark World Environment Day, India reaffirmed its commitment to defeat plastic pollution.