Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Credit: PTI Photo
Gorakhpur (UP): Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said sanitation workers are the foundation stones for making any city clean and beautiful.
If Gorakhpur has become a clean and beautiful metropolis today, most of the credit for this goes to the sanitation workers, he said.
Adityanath was addressing the Safai Mitra Suraksha Sammelan and Samman Samaroh organised by the Gorakhpur Municipal Corporation at Ambedkar Park in Rapti Nagar. He honoured the sanitation workers by giving them certificates and gifts of sweets in the ceremony.
While congratulating and wishing everyone on Deepotsav, the chief minister said it is a moment of great happiness for him that he has got the opportunity to honour the sanitation workers who played the biggest role in making Gorakhpur metropolis clean and beautiful from the main festival of Deepawali.
He said today the whole of Gorakhpur looks clean and beautiful due to the contribution of these 'safai karamcharis'.
Earlier, he said, such a situation did not exist. Garbage used to be found everywhere. Children and the elderly used to fall prey to many diseases due to waterlogging. Dirt used to have a bad effect on the image of the metropolis, he said.
Adityanath said Gorakhpur became clean due to the removal of dirt and waterlogging, and diseases also ended with this. Now, Gorakhpur is not known for dirt but for its clean environment and wide roads, he said, and added that whoever comes here gets overwhelmed by seeing the environment and development work here.
He said being a human being, the right to sympathy and respect that 'safai karamcharis' should have got, was not given to them. Today, the situation has changed. Gratitude should be expressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi so for this, Adityanath said.
He said Prime Minister Modi started the Swachh Bharat Mission campaign on October 2, 2014, shaking the soul of the country for cleanliness. Encouraging the programme of personal and public cleanliness, it was made a national programme, he said.
Adityanath said it was ensured that the practice of open defecation was stopped. For this, more than 10 crore personal toilets were built. Apart from this, public toilets were built in gram panchayats and other places. The result of this was that the dignity of women was also protected and every section of the society is getting the benefit of a clean environment, he said.
The chief minister also said festivals and celebrations are enjoyable only when we celebrate them with a sense of collectiveness instead of celebrating them alone.
He appealed to people to share happiness with the poor on Deepavali. He requested them to adopt one or two poor families and arrange for lighting lamps and sweets and 'phuljhari' (firecrackers) in their homes. "If we can do this, we will be able to establish Uttar Pradesh as a strong bastion of equality, harmony and national unity," he said.
Gorakhpur MP Ravi Kishan Shukla and Mayor Manglesh Shrivastava also addressed the function, the UP government said in a statement.