Mr. Bachchan is the latest celebrity to urge people to use toilets

The name is Bachchan, Shri Amitabh Bachchan. And when the ‘Don’ says something to you, you better listen to it. Okay, calm down. Mr. Bachchan, with all his sincerity and passion, has always been an advocate of all things good and bright and this time, he has a message for his fellow countrymen.

Do you know what that is?

Here’s what you ought to know.

After Bollywood celebrities like Vidya Balan and Akshay Kumar heartfully appealed to the country to start making use of the toilets- yes, in this part of the 21st century where all rave about India’s economic developments and the start-up boom, there’s also an India that exists albeit without much  personal hygiene- Mr. Amitabh Bachchan is the latest actor to be urging the countrymen to do so.

Here’s what is the fact of the matter.

As part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s ambitious and pertinent Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (or mission), the legendary Bollywood actor actually unveiled what seems to be an interesting Darwaza Band-Part 2 campaign, an effort to sustain the open defecation free status of villages around the country.

In case, you were wondering what ODF is then, well, about time we all understood what that means. ODF = Open Defecation Free, a status that will cover villages across the country, as part of the government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (or mission).

And that’s not more.

Darwaza Band- Part 2 campaign is actually a part of ‘Grameen’, which is produced by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, and is supported by none other than the World Bank.

And who could have been better- isn’t it- other than having Mr. Amitabh Bachchan lend his incredible personality toward forwarding the campaign, one that concerns such a critical part of our lives, known as hygiene?

To quote Times Now, you’ve got to make time for the following:

At the event, Amitabh gave a brief background to the development of the campaign and mentioned that the campaign talks about how a toilet must be used by all, always and under all circumstances (har koi, har Roz, hamesha), read a PIB statement. He also dedicated a re-adaptation of a poem of his father, the late Harivansh Rai Bachchan to the Swachh Bharat Mission — Swachh Tann, Swachh Mann, Swachh Bharat, Mera Parichay.

The above told, there are some rather arresting numbers that pertain to the actual impact of the Swachh Bharat Mission and one that may help us understand the gravity of the campaign’s effort.

It turns out that as many as 50 crore people have stopped defecating in the open since the launch of the SBM, with around 5.5 lakh villages that have already been declared- Open Defecation Free.

It’s commendable, isn’t it?

What’s also important to understand is that at the heart of the campaign rests a two-point agenda that includes the following:

A) The primary focus of the program, in the words of Mr. Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, is behavioral change. 

And the second is,

B) Promoting a Sustainable use of toilets.