Clean India can come with Clean Habits

I had shared my my views, emotions and questions regarding how India can afford (the huge cost) and sustain (the capability to hold this initiative forever) in my blog "Swatchh Bharat mission - can India afford and sustain?"  followed by a little deeper insights in discussing India's problems associated with the 'dirty image' through "Dirty India-root cause analysis-potential solution"

I have no room for two mistakes (there are many more) when I'm in the company of my children.  Firstly, jumping a traffic signal and secondly, throwing a piece of paper even accidentally in a public place.   They catch me on the spot!!!  Why is that?  its because as parents my wife and I have taught them that these actions are "Red" and never to be done.  They strongly believe this and it was possible due to the constant reinforcement from us.

By 2020, India is set to become the "youngest country in the world" - the median individual in India will be 29 years - I read somewhere.  To bring a cleaner India image and a transformation in the country, we must target the children and the young Indians by constantly talking to them about the green and red actions, reinforcing the good habits, teaching them the value system and even demonstrating better civic sense.  Once they learn, they become aware, they follow and even stop us and others from doing.  They are not afraid of correcting the behavior of elders.  We the elders learn from them in the process and are cautious about not doing or repeating them.  

This will certainly take us towards a cleaner country.  Once we have our surroundings clean - our mind will be clean and we can focus on our personal and organizational growth resulting in a greater growth of the nation.

There are so much buzz going around implementing 5S lean methodology in organizations.  5S is a Japanese methodology to drive work place cleanliness and efficiency.  Many industries and factories religiously follow and greatly benefit from this.  

There are 5 pillars in the 5S methodology that can be applied to this mission,

1. Seiri - Sort (dry vs. wet garbage segregation)
2. Seiton - Set in order (streamline)
3. Seiso - Shine (clean workplace and home, inspect and adapt)
4. Seiketsu - Standardise (maintain high standards in cleanliness and orderliness)
5. Shitsuke - Sustain

We can also adopt such principles at homes, schools and apartments too, to achieve cleaner environment.

Where shall we go from here...

• lets segregate, reduce, recycle and reuse, follow 5S
• build awareness, avoid plastics - start from self, family, neighborhood
• educate children - we already know why its important
• lead by example...watch! children copy every single action of ours...good or bad
• build clean habits or add them to your value system, help others
• join hands, partner and collaborate

To conclude my thoughts - two things that I would like all of us to watch for!!

Lets not become popular by cleaning!!

Lets not get an identity that "India is clean because its cleaned" but rather "India is clean because we the Indians have clean values and habits"

"India has a great future and all these small habits can even bring back all the Indians (read it as dreaded!) staying abroad and missing the best of India with a notion that India is not a clean country to live in...."  I took the liberty to borrow this statement from my wife.