Taking ahead the message of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan ahead secretly is a group of people in Delhi who transform a dirty and filthy spot into a clean artistic motif. This is a do-it-yourself citizen group who have come together in New Delhi and Gurgaon to clean up the dirty places. 

They believe that the city is dirty not because of the civic agencies but because of the people who make it dirty and its their responsibility too to maintain it as a clean city. Many well dressed men and women are now seen in New Delhi who work on weekends removing garbage, peeling off ugly posters and paint walls. This kind of initiative actually began in Bangalore with the name The Ugly Indian. The same movement has been spread all over the country now. 

Recently the group including children cleaned a spot which had become a urinal spot. They cleaned the spot and the wall and painted it with a big arrow pointing towards toilet and wrote Sauchalay.

As per a report published in Hindustan Times, Swati Bhalla founding volunteer of the Delhi-based We Mean To Clean, said, “We believe we need to clean up our cities ourselves rather than keep cribbing about the system or the civic agencies. In our drive in Noida , we sought the help of Noida Authority, which sent four of its workers to help us clean the place. Earlier we used to clean everything ourselves but now we collaborate with the authorities. We feel such partnership with citizens and civic authorities is the best way to clean and keep our cities clean.”    Talking about the same, Nakul B, a co-founder of New Delhi Rising, the city’s first citizen volunteers group that works to ‘restore and reclaim the city’s spaces’ said, “We litter the places, not the workers of civic agencies. We believe the civic agencies are overburdened and instead of blaming them, we should look inward and actively participate in cleaning our cities.” 

The same thoughts are seconded by a volunteer from Gurgaon Rising. Members of Gurgaon Rising involves children too in their camp in deeds like removing the posters. Such activities are simpler for children too and they also get readily involved for working for the society. 

“Citizens are ruining the cities and only they can save them,” informed Nakul. Naked who works with an MNC is not the only one to be a part of such group. Many youngsters are part of these groups who volunteer themselves for cleanliness drive. 

“ Every volunteer contributes R 200 during a spot-fix to cover the costs of tools and supplies,” said Nakul.

“There is no better way to keep our cities clean than the cooperation and participation of citizens, who need to have a sense of ownership of the city. What happens is our workers clean the city in the morning and people litter within a few hours. In fact, we are soon going to put out advertisements, seeking public participation in our efforts to clean up the city,” said Yogendra Singh Mann, spokesperson, North and East MCD. 

These community uses social media as a major tool to reach more and more people. Facebook page is updated with the next drives and also reported about the before and after images. The volunteers believe that such drives also changes the attitude of citizen by doing something good for the city. These groups have cleaned and fixed many spots in the city and thousands of people support the cause. They also involve various art groups to clean the walls and give them a different look.