Will we get a 'Clean India' in near future?

Since the new PM Narendra Modi has come to power there is the big hope that the focus would move from planning to execution, from talk to walk, from roughs into fairways. An example to tee this off was the scrapping of the planning commission once considered central to UPA's economic blueprint. Modi has since launched several campaigns all of which have India Inc taking up the cause and driving it ahead. This includes the support for the girl child, the push for sanitation, and now the latest since the week gone by – 'Clean India.'

I was returning on a Jet Airways flight from Delhi to Mumbai and I noted that the airline has moved its Save The Child in-flight campaign to The Clean India campaign. The oil PSUs across the country have put up massive posters on fuel pumps advertising the Swacch Bharat Mission. Many companies are putting aside corporate social responsibility corpus towards this too.

Both industry bodies are participating too. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) started cleaning activities at its own headquarters here.

"We are happy and encouraged by the prime minister's call for a 'Clean India' by 2019. FICCI shares his vision for 'Swachch Bharat' and agrees that the entire nation needs to come forward and commit itself to this noble initiative," said A. Didar Singh, secretary general, FICCI. CII too has undertaken a sanitation drive of building 10,000 toilets.

It's great to see this started off. Here's a look at what must be considered beyond a good plan.

One, implementation. Who will execute this? How will it sustain? Five people using the broom for a photo-op isn't going to clean this country. We need checks and more checks. When Modi arrived at a police station in Delhi to clean it, he was appalled with what he saw. That tells us that if police stations face such dire cleanliness challenges, then there remains a big question mark on how the rest of the country will implement Swachh Bharat.

Two, supporting infrastructure. We possibly can't find a permanent solution in septic tanks or piling up garbage in dumps at city outskirts. Are we things of a solid clearing network? Are we considering underground trash storage until it's moved to bio gas plants like countries like Turkey do? Who will be watching over this implementation? While physical infrastructure is one, there is a dearth of education with respect to hygiene and cleanliness – who is undertaking that?

Three, taking ownership. Cleanliness is a matter of attitude and upbringing. Perhaps this is a good time to start that along with having campaigns and drives. This can be done by corporations too in a big way as institutional ownership is a great method of ensuring that such a plan can go viral through employees.

It's all very well for corporations to move funds out of one public service to another. It's also very headline-grabbing to know how much money has been pledged for toilets and cleanliness. But the solution is being part of the problem-solving at all levels. And India Inc must now start sincerely thinking about that given that it appears the PM is serious and any effort in this direction will not only gain companies brownie points with the PM but also with the nation's public at large.