Nagaland: AR unit allegedly litters school, cleans up mess later
Source: The Sangai Express

New Delhi, September 30 2017: It seems for some people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat campaign has just become an affair for scoring brownie points and reducing the drive to a mere photo op .

A controversy has broken out on the issue as a unit of Assam Rifles allegedly first littered a school in Mokokchung district of Nagaland, only to get it cleaned later by the officers and troops .

However, the local citizens and teachers of the school not only objected to the littering exercise being done allegedly by the jawans of the 44 Assam Rifles, but also recorded it and made it viral on WhatsApp and Facebook .

According to the video, the Assam Rifles jawans got permission from the local school to clean the premises with the help of the students on September 28, and soon after, spread pieces of paper and other waste before the cleaning exercise under the ‘Swachhata Hi Sewa’ campaign .

In the video, a Junior Commissioned Officer of the Assam Rifles can be seen negotiating with the local school authorities (who were objecting) and telling them that they have done similar exercises in other schools as well.

But the authorities did not relent .

The school teachers also made the Assam Rifles troops clean the mess that they had created in the school and the students, who were standing with brooms and other cleaning material were sent back to their classes .

‘COURT OF INQUIRY ORDERED’
It has come to notice that the matter has been taken very seriously by the Assam Rifles authorities as under the campaign, the force is supposed to clean the already dirty places but not to dirty localities first and then clean it .

When the video was brought to the notice of Assam Rifles chief Lt Gen Shaukin Chahuan, he told Mail Today that the “issue had been brought to my notice and immediately I had ordered a Court of Inquiry into the matter.”
Meanwhile, due to the anti-cleanliness campaign being run by both serving and retired officers for involving uniformed troops on social media, army formations have issued directives to the units that no uniformed personnel should be clicked while cleaning duties .

Officers, mainly the retired ones, have termed the Prime Minister’s initiative to involve army as a step to degrade the dignity of uniformed personnel by involving them in cleanliness drives.

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