Our city Kanpur looks dirty, so does our great country India. Every single public place, be it a street, a lane, a government office, a railway station, a bus station, a hospital, or a public park, looks filthy. The offensive sites of littered garbage, overflowing sewage, defaced walls, people in hordes easing out in the public and water logged areas dot our city and country. A dirty looking country can not claim to be a great nation and can never claim to be a developed country. India can not grow in the midst of dirt, filth, garbage, sewage and stench issuing from such shitty things. India needs to be cleaned urgently. India must look clean to claim a respectable place in the eyes, hearts, minds and souls of its countrymen as well as foreigners.

Can we make India clean? Can we, as a nation, be confident of making India clean? Are we capable of doing this? Can we make our countrymen think about this? Can we instil a sense of urgency as well as importance regarding this among our people? These are the moot questions we need to think about seriously.

Eco-friends is launching a “Clean Kanpur –Clean India” campaign. We've divided our campaign in two parts, one at the national level and the other at the local level. Most of the activities are planned at the local level.

At the national level we are writing to highest authorities like The President of India, The Prime Minister of India, Leader Opposition (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha), Speakers of both the houses, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, The Chief Justice of India and others. Thousands of children from 10 schools of Kanpur will demand a Clean India from The President, The Prime Minister and Smt. Sonia Gandhi by writing postcards to them. The Children will also demand for declaring Gandhi Jayanti on 2nd of October as “National Cleanliness Day” or “Clean India Day” so that the day could be dedicated to the cleaning of the country. The idea is to mobilize the whole nation so that at-least for a day countrymen could participate in cleaning, washing, sweeping and removing filth from the public places.

At the local level a series of activities are lined up. We're holding an inter-school debate "Our country India looks Dirty-Agree/Disagree" on 10th of August, 2005. Various other intra and inter-school activities are proposed.

Students and educational institutions will play a major role in generating mass awareness. They will take the message of Clean Kanpur-Clean India to the people. Eco friends has formed a "Coordination Committee" of 10 principals of renowned schools of Kanpur. The Coordination Committee is responsible for planning and executing the school based activities. One of the interesting activities would be to identify five most filthy and five most clean places/ institutions in town.

The District Magistrate Mr. Deepak Kumar is extending full cooperation to make the campaign successful. Efforts will be made to rope in key institutions like Army, NCC, police, other paramilitary forces, Kanpur University, IIT, HBTI, Civil Defense wardens, Mayor of the city, Corporators, peoples'representatives, business associations, religious organizations and through these institutions the common man.

Your role is of utmost importance in spreading the message and giving momentum to the campaign. We solicit your active participation and request your support to make the dream of "Clean Kanpur-Clean India " true.

If you think it's worth doing, please make it happen.

Many thanks and regards
Rakesh K Jaiswal

Coordination Committee members:

Ms. Archana Nigam(Principal, DPS Kalyanpur)
Mr. Bhaskar Ganti(Principal, Puranchandra Vidya Niketan)
Sr. Deepa (Principal, Saint Mary's Convent)
Mr. KV Vincent (Principal, Huddard High School)
Ms. Kavita Vij (Principal The Jain international school)
Ms. Meenakshi Mathur (Principal Dr. Virendra Swarup Memorial Public School)
Mr.SVS Bhandari (Principal, Seth Anandram Jaipuria School)
Ms. Sharmila Nandi (Principal Dr. Virendra Swarup Education Centre)
Mr. TT Thomas (Principal, Mercy Memorial School)
Sr. Yvette (Principal, Saint Joseph's Senior Secondary School)

 

Rakesh K Jaiswal addressing the NCC officials (Col and Lt Cols) about the campaign

More than 20,000 postcards from 16 schools were sent to President, PM and Sonia Gandhi

5 such hoardings were put up at 5 prime locations of Kanpur	6,000 such posters were distributed in schools and offices

559 such bins were placed in some localities

Kanpur was cleaned as never before in the month of September

 

DM expressing solidarity with the campaign on Sept 22	Rakesh K Jaiswal addressing the officials regarding Clean Kanpur campaign on Sept 23

 

Awareness programs by Jain International School

Awareness programs by Mariyampur

Awareness programs by DPS Kalyanpur

Environment Awareness Rally by NCC and Eco-freinds