One Lakh Hands Campaign is a good initiative taken by the management of Meridian School in Hyderabad. The main theme of the campaign is to keep our city clean. For this, surprisingly, many children and students came forward to make the campaign success on the eve of New Year. The school management came forward in making success and bring awareness in the people regarding washing hands and keeping clean for better health.

Subha Thakur, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Urban Development attended the program of starting the campaign. She launched the ‘One Lakh Hands Campaign’ on Wednesday.

“Does anyone know what is open defecation?”

This is the question posted by Subha Thakur, to a group of children at the Meridian School.

“It’s like using the washroom outside!” answered a boy, wide-eyed yet confident.

The campaign aims at reaching out to 100 different schools, both government and private, and over one lakh students in the process in Hyderabad over the next two months to spread the message of cleanliness in cities.“We have started this as a pilot project and hope to take it across the country soon as children are the best ambassadors to spread the message of Swachh Bharat and to make it successful, we need to go for a behavioral change. This is everybody’s mission,” said Ms. Thakur.

The other main agenda of the campaign is to build over one crore toilets across the country. Thakur also suggested the students not to feel shy about telling the other person not to litter. “We have a target of building one crore toilets across the country and the deadline is October 2, 2019, which will be Mahatma Gandhi’s 150{+t}{+h}birth anniversary,” she said.

Ms. Thakur said the Centre was also planning a comprehensive survey and citizens should give a missed call on 1800 26 72 777, a toll-free number and it will be active till January 15, 2016. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) was taking an active part in taking up the campaign, especially in waste segregation. “We have started distributing red and green waste baskets to households and soon the entire city will be covered,” said E. Sudhakar, Executive Engineer, Solid Waste Management, GHMC.