Srinagar, Sep 14 (KNS) Jammu and Kashmir Education Secretary Ram Niwas Sharma (IAS) on Monday said Srinagar has the potential to outrank Indore in cleanliness rankings, as the administration launched a drive urging students to become "brand ambassadors" of sanitation.
Ram Niwas Sharma said the programme is a step towards fulfilling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream of a clean India.
"As far as our Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir are concerned, it is a very beautiful place," he told reporters here as per news agency Kashmir News Service (KNS).
He said the region has historically been known for its cleanliness, but the influx of tourists has led to a perception of dirtiness in the city.
"It is a witness of history that it has always been considered so clean and secure. Now, due to the presence of tourists, we have a bad reputation that our city is a bit dirty. So, to make it clean, we are starting a programme," he said, adding that the Housing and Urban Development Department is initiating the drive.
Around 25 to 30 lakh students across Jammu and Kashmir would be encouraged to take ownership of public spaces and government property, he said.
"If they become brand ambassadors... that we have to keep our homes clean, we have to keep everything clean around our families... So, we want that all our children become brand ambassadors of cleanliness," Sharma said.
Emphasising the need for a sense of ownership, he said, "We keep our homes clean, but we don't own the public space or government property. So, we should have a sense of ownership. We should have a sense of cleanliness."
"If we talk about our villages, we are no less than the villages of Sikkim or Meghalaya. We have such beautiful lakes and mountains, we just have to keep them clean. We have to preserve our Chinar," he said.
Referring to a village in Meghalaya considered the cleanest in Asia, Sharma asked, "Why don't we keep our village clean? We should rank among the cleanest villages in the world."
He urged citizens to treat waste as a resource. "We should make waste our resource. We should make waste our wonder. We should make waste our wealth. The day we start making our waste our wealth, we will go a long way."
The Secretary called upon students, teachers and professors to spread the message of ownership and cleanliness.
"Today, all our students... should send a message that all our students should own their assets, the public space of the government. They should bring the concept of ownership and move forward like a brand ambassador," he said.
On the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) in Jammu and Kashmir, Sharma said the Union Territory was among the first to implement it at the school, college and higher education levels.
"Some of our flagship programmes are Design Your Degree, Four Year Degree Programme. As far as schools are concerned, we have started Balwatika 1, 2, 3 in schools. This has had a huge impact," he said.
Sharma said skill development is being prioritised alongside academics.
"Approximately 1,40,000 students are learning skills in schools. In our colleges and universities, we have integrated vocational and skill education in more than 25 per cent of the courses," he said. (KNS)
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