Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (ANK)

Mangaluru, Feb 12: The Swacch Bharat Abhiyan in Mangaluru spearheaded by Ramakrishna Mission got a big boost on Sunday February 12 with veteran Bollywood actor, the renowned Nana Patekar flagging off the 200th cleanliness drive rally and painting the wall of Mangalore Univeristy College at Hampankatta here.

Addressing the gathering, Nana Patekar said, "Ramakrishna Mission has taken up the initiative to clean Mangaluru city as a part of Swacch Bharat Abhiyan. Today, people are more involved in finding ways to make money and keeping themselves busy, because of which we have lagged behind in taking the responsibility of our house and society. Nowadays, people hardly think about the society and have become more selfish. Country can be clean only if we start thinking about our role and responsibililty towards building our nation.

"Today we have come to a situation where we need an Abhiyan to keep our country clean. This is nothing but a tragedy, as every citizen of this country has the responsibililty to keep the environment and the society clean. Only if we do this, can the whole country be cleansed.

"When we pay visit to other countries, we feel amazed to see the cleaniness maintained by them and start praising their country, and we even follow their rules and regulations. But in India people do not even care about the law. It is good to see college students of Mangaluru joining hands with Ramakrishna Mission towards making the city clean," he added.

Earlier, Swami Jitakamanandaji of Ramakrishna Math inaugurated the new auto rickshaw stand opposite Mangalore University College.

A rally was taken out from Hampankatta to Ramakrishna Math, Mangaldevi, in which Nana Patekar and several students took part.

Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, MLC Capt Ganesh Karnik, convenor of Ramakrishna Mission Swami Chidambarananda and others were present.