It’s Gandhi Jayanti once again and it’s time to renew vows on the much-talked-about nation-wide Swachh Bharat Mission. It’s that time of the year where all the talk about keeping our cities, towns and villages clean takes centre stage. It’s the time when politicos take to the podium to flaunt their Swachh ambition and set new deadlines to sweeping away the dirt and garbage while invoking Mahatma Gandhi. In line with the rest of India and keeping up with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has announced that all single-use plastics will be banned across the State from October 2. The day has arrived, but is Goa ready?
A note was circulated in all government departments barring the use of plastics in offices, canteen and official functions while the rest of Goa remained clueless on the way forward and the type of plastic that is being banned. The awareness among people is minimal and markets continue to be flooded with all sorts of plastics including plastic-packaged food products. Whether we like it or not, single-use plastic is so deeply ingrained into the daily lifestyle of every Goan that it would require a Herculean effort coupled with a collective will to cleanse the system.
Apart from awareness, there must be viable alternatives, both for business establishments and people of Goa. While the government is still contemplating on introducing jute and cloth bags, toxic polypropylene bags with an appearance of cloth are in use.
Swachh Bharat Mission is a nation-wide campaign launched by Modi in 2014 with the aim of cleanliness over a five-year timeframe. Five years later, it’s time to introspect. All the photo-ops of prominent leaders including Modi sweeping garbage on Gandhi Jayanti have been publicity gimmicks. Goa’s garbage continues to raise the stench. Five years down the line, our garbage management continues to be one of the biggest failures with very slow progress. The proposed Bainguinim plant is a testimony to this fact.
There are huge challenges in achieving the Clean India Mission and pushing through such half-hearted initiatives is not going to transform the country into a New India which Modi is propagating. We need to be realistic to the ground conditions. Goa is going through the motions only to fulfil Modi’s vision, just the way it did with open-defecation ban. Cleansing of the system is a laborious process, especially when there are tweaks needed in lifestyle and behavioural patterns of society. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant was candid enough to admit that it is impossible to completely eradicate open-defecation for now. And probably he will have to make a similar admission on eradicating single-use plastic.
Goa should have been more serious with the bans and their enforcement because we are a tourist state hosting visitors from across the world. If the State has to follow the mantra “tourist is God”, it cannot overlook hygiene and cleanliness at any cost. Plastic ban and open-defecation ban are two excellent initiatives towards swachhta, but sadly, Goa has followed it as a mere formality. The single-use plastic ban appears to meet the same fate as the open-defecation ban.
