Swachh Bharat Abhiyan-An Initiative for Cleaner Water Bodies

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan(Clean India Mission) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi. It is a national campaign undertaken by the Government of India that covers 4041 towns and primarily aims at cleaning of streets, roads and other infrastructure of the country. It’s not a new programme since in 1986, Central Rural Sanitation Programme was launched which later evolved into Total Sanitation Campaign in 1999 and Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in 2012. It’s an extension of these programmes to bring about a cleaner India.  It is considered the biggest cleanliness drive ever to be launched in India because it observed participation around 3 million government employees, school and college students.

Aims Of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

The Swachh Bharat Campaign aims at achieving a cleaner India by October 2, 2019 which will mark the 150^th birthday anniversary of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. The total expenditure allocated to implement this programme is around Rs. 62000 crores. Some of its specific objectives are:

• Cleaning of streets, roads and water bodies to obtain a cleaner environment
• Bringing about a change in the population’s behavior towards sanitation and healthy practices
• Construction of effective waste disposal systems for towns and villages to eliminate wastes

Nualgi-- A way to achieve Cleaner Water Bodies

Many technological developments in recent past definitely have changed our perspective as to how we may achieve a cleaner India. Development of the nano technology called Nualgi, developed by T Sampath Kumar (receiver of national award for innovation in 2013) of Bengaluru fits in perfectly with the aims of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. It’s a technology that’s specifically designed to clean polluted water of rivers, drains, lakes, ponds, bays and coastlines, for overall pond lake development.

What is basically does is that it in the process of decontaminating water bodies, it absorbs the essential greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and detoxifies the water making it clean and pure. It’s also known to convert pollutants present in the water bodies into food that can be eaten by fish so as to minimize deaths amongst aquatic life.

It’s a chemical formula that can be added in little quantity to the water resource to grow diatoms in water which facilitates the aquatic food chain and hence restore the nutrients of the water.It’s much better and economical than the existing methodologies used these days that involve bacteria or enzyme dosing and oxygenation.

Diatoms are ribbon-like algae that are mostly found in oceans, seas and freshwater basins. These algae are the favorite food for zooplanktons, fish, crustaceans and other aquatic life. They mainly minimize the toxic effects caused by blue green algae. Nualgi has been certified as a non-toxic formula and has been successfully used in many water bodies of India like the water ponds alongside the Rajpath connecting India Gate to Rastrapati Bhavan. It removed 85% of the thick algae, eliminated the stench and made the water habitable for aquatic life.

According to various researches, it’s believed that Nualgi can definitely contribute to neutralize the hazardous sewage that flows in the river Yamuna and also curb vector-borne diseases that are caused due to the toxins and chemicals present in the water.  In that respect, it becomes essential that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan makes the best use of this latest technology which can do wonders to promote safe and pure water bodies.