The ‘Clean India’ campaign, which was launched in December 2011, will start its pilot project of cleaning and creating awareness at Qutab Minar for the next two months.
The project is under the Union tourism ministry, and NGO Prayas Juvenile Aid Centre (JAC) and India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) have come together to start the initiatives, giving a deadline of August 10 this year.
“There will be construction of toilets outside the monument, and some of them have already been renovated. We have started cleaning the monument as well, as we felt that most monuments are dirty with people spitting and littering,” said Kanth, Prayas general secretary.
“An awareness campaign with the help of our volunteers started on Sunday. This project will be expanded to the whole of India gradually,” said Kanth.
Priyanka Pathak, senior manager, Prayas, said two toilets in the Qutab complex and four toilets near the parking lot have been repaired. “Eight more toilets outside the complex will be constructed by August. A police booth in the area will also be set up soon, and talks are on for this,” she said.
The process of connecting sewage line to the main city sewage system in also underway. “We found out that this area’s sewage line is not connected to the city's main sewage line,” said Kanth, adding that an information kiosk there has also been slightly improved.
An orientation program will be started for staff to interact with visitors. “It has been seen that the staff at most historical monuments do not respond effectively to enquiries. All that will be covered in the orientation,” added Pathak.
At least 100 volunteers in the set of 10 will visit the monument every day. Officials hope the awareness campaign, which will give out a message of keeping the monument clean, will be spread through word-of-mouth.
“That is how we are planning to maintain the continuity of this project after its deadline,” added Pathak.
ITDC chairman Lalit Panwar said the tourism ministry is identifying different management to take on similar pilot projects.
“The ministry has identified the hotel management section of Pusa Institute for the project at Red Fort,” he said.
Kanth said the monument for the next pilot project has not been decided yet. “We will decide in the next few meetings,” said Pathak.
Qutab Minar is the first pilot project. “After Taj Mahal, which saw a footfall of 40,000 visitors on weekends, Qutab Minar is the second monument seeing up to 25,000 visitors on weekends,” added Kanth.