Behavioural change key to meeting Swachh Bharat goals

Addressing the field communicators who are in charge of creating public awareness, P Madhusudhan Reddy, Deputy Commissioner (Health), Greater Chennai Corporation, said that the focus should be to bring about simple behavioural changes among the public.

“The field workers can start with simple steps. For instance, when a person is traveling in a bus and is eating peanuts, he throws away the paper. Or when a person buys and eats a banana, he throws the peel on the ground instead of using a bin merely a hundred meters away. We need to incite these small behavioural changes – like throwing the peel or paper in the bin.”

Madhusudhan said that there was a need to address the issue behind urinating in public. “Despite toilets being constructed, people are not using it because they are used to defecating in the open. We need to address these issues,” he added, stressing how these small changes could go a long way in the effective implementation of Swachh Bharat initiative.

E Mariappan, Additional Director General, Press Information Bureau (PIB), noted how field communicators can take up and address open defecation in one village so that neighbours villages, too, would follow suit. M Annadurai, Director, Doordarshan Kendra (News), Chennai, said that in many cases, people construct toilets under various government schemes but use it as cattle shelter. “We need to get the people to understand the need for such initiatives, failing which implementation will be incomplete,” he added.