A CLEAN IMAGE, A FILTHY REALITY

India’s most visible campaign isn’t its most successful one.

Nearly a decade after the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the country is still drowning in garbage piles and open drains—especially in cities that should be models of urban renewal.

Billboards sparkle with smiling data-faces and slogans, while entire neighbourhoods stink of neglect.
What began as a cleanliness revolution has decayed into a marketing operation dressed as governance.

THE BILLION-RUPEE BRANDING MACHINE

Government data show that thousands of crores have been spent on advertising, outreach, and “awareness.”
Every poster, radio jingle, and television commercial carries the same image: the leader with a broom, the slogan, the promise of transformation.

Yet, for all the optics, actual sanitation budgets remain stagnant.

Municipal bodies operate with outdated trucks, underpaid workers, and overflowing landfills.
We built a brand, not a system.

JAIPUR: capital OF CONTRADICTIONS

Drive through the heart of Rajasthan’s capital and you’ll see the gap between narrative and ground reality.
Streets crumble, drains overflow, and garbage trucks are scarce.

Jaipur still bears the architecture of royalty but the infrastructure of neglect.

Smaller cities—Udaipur, Kota, even Ajmer—have moved ahead with localised initiatives, while jaipur has turned into a case study in stalled urban planning.

Ten years, multiple governments, endless slogans—and the city looks exactly the same.

THE DOUBLE-ENGINE MYTH

“Double-engine” governance promised synergy: the state and Centre working in harmony.
In reality, it has delivered double the bureaucracy and half the accountability.

When every failure is blamed on another tier of government, nothing moves.
Jaipur’s civic crisis proves that a shared slogan does not guarantee shared responsibility.

WHEN MARKETING REPLACES MAINTENANCE

A clean city doesn’t come from hashtags; it comes from trucks that arrive on time, sewage systems that work, and workers who are paid decently.

Instead of fixing drains, municipalities are fixing optics.

Tender after tender is issued for publicity material while sanitation workers still lack safety gear.

We are witnessing the birth of Swachh Bharat Pvt. Ltd. — a brand that thrives on perception, not performance.

ANIMALS LIVE BETTER ABROAD, HUMANS DESERVE BETTER HERE

It’s a cruel comparison, but not an unfair one.
In many developed nations, even municipal shelters and farms are cleaner than our city markets.

India’s problem isn’t poverty—it’s priorities.
We treat cleanliness as a seasonal campaign, not a civic right.

THE PRICE OF NEGLECT

Every rupee diverted to publicity is a rupee stolen from sanitation.

The result: polluted groundwater, mosquito-borne diseases, and a generation that grows up thinking garbage dumps are normal city landmarks.

Cleanliness cannot survive on moral lectures; it needs management, manpower, and money spent in the right place.

EPILOGUE: TIME TO CLEAN THE SYSTEM, NOT JUST THE STREETS

If governments truly want a “Clean India,” they must start by cleaning up the way public money is used.
Stop the photo-ops. Publish real audits. Empower municipalities instead of marketing firms.

Because until the broom is used for sweeping streets instead of sweeping failures under the rug, Swachh Bharat will remain what it has become — a spotless image hiding a dirty truth.