Narendra Modi's diktat on Swachh Bharat Mission makes bureaucrats scramble for brooms

Following prime minister Narendra Modi's diktat to start Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2, bureaucrats in various ministries are scrambling to get hold of brooms, dusters and dustbins. The requisition for brooms and dusters ranges from a dozen to 70-80 pieces depending on the strength of a particular department in a ministry.

Modi, who is currently in USA, will launch the Swachh Bharat Mission by taking cleanliness pledge at 9:30am on Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary from Rajpath. By launching this Swachh Bharat Mission, Modi wants to ensure India is clean by 2019, which marks the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi.

The government servants were aware of cleanliness drive, but following the orders via a demi-official (DO) letter dated on September 24 from the secretary of the ministry of urban development, Shankar Aggarwal, officers realised the seriousness of it.

The DO letter that reached secretaries of central ministries on September 26 evening, took bureaucrats by surprise when it landed on their table on Monday.

Though the DO letter addressed to secretaries of the ministries uses polite words like "request you to consider" and the officials will "voluntarily" carry out cleaning, the bureaucrats have taken the letter as a mandatory order and could be seen holding meetings to how to carry out the cleanliness drive, which places are dirty inside and outside and where would they deposit the dirt.

The reason to take it as mandatory lies in the cleanliness pledge accompanying the letter, which says, I resolve to put in two hours every week and 100 hours a year to implement the resolve of cleanliness, a senior joint secretary said.

The letter directs all government employees to be present at 9 am in their respective offices on October 2, take cleanliness pledge at 9:45 am and then voluntarily carry out cleaning of their office premises.

"All the officers/officials may also be motivated to contribute voluntarily towards cleaning of their residential premises, neighbourhood and social network premises so as to provide 100 hours of voluntary contribution during the year," the letter.

But the questions that are baffling the government employees are – what do we do if the area is already clean, should be let it remain unclean a day before and what the safai karamacharis would do if we start doing their work.
The safai karamcharis are also dumbstruck. "Does the government want to get rid of us?" one asked.