Swachh Bharat not on tracks? Viral video shows heaps of trash along railway lines

Achieving a ‘swachh Bharat’ seems to be on top of  Modi sarkar’s agenda, but India is anything but swachh (clean). A video, put up by activist Aarti Chauhan,  which has gone  viral on Facebook, shows that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is asking people to keep their own country clean, the citizens are hardly listening. [caption id=“attachment_2156563” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A screengrab from the video.[/caption] Aarti and her husband Anarjit Chauhan, after being shocked by the heaps of garbage trailing on rail tracks, decided to take a video and send it to the Prime Minister’s office and to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. The video called, “Hariyali aur Gandagi’ (greenery and garbage), that the couple shot from the inside a train shows plastic, paper and all sorts of other trash, in large amounts, scattered along the train tracks. While the scenery of the countryside is beautiful, the garbage sticks out like a sore thumb. The Times of India quoted Aarti as saying, “Through this video, which we have shot on a cellphone, I want to send a message to PM Modi ji that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (national cleanliness drive) has not really shown its effect here. We saw countless number of used plastic and food packets thrown out of running trains, to litter the agricultural farms en route.” The couple also send a letter to the PM along with the video where they say, “Entering the platform was like entering the world’s dirtiest, Sulabh Swachalaya on the LTT Terminus, it is beyond explanation, please experience it personally. Need not update you with the unhygienic trains and pantry as you are already aware of it. During interaction with co-passengers it was surprising to know how much each one had to shell out for tickets.” The issue raised by the couple assumes significant as it comes not even a month after the Rail Budget presented by Suresh Prabhu that laid great emphasis on clean trains and platforms. The couple cleverly used the song “Mere desh ki dharti” as background music. “I went through the Rail-Budget. Inculcating cleanliness habit among passengers, sanitation, hygienic –food and pantry, disposal of plastic garbage and recycling it is more important than designing of Bed-Linen, providing best food chain with variety, modernization of stations. Not only Swachh Rail and Tracks but also Swachh, Green Scenic Beauty needs to be witnessed all along both the sides of the Railway tracks moving parallel all along our journey like in olden days.,” Aarti wrote in the letter to the Prime Minister. Here’s the video: