ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday launched an ambitious five-year Clean and Green Pakistan campaign aimed at beautifying the country and for a better future for coming generations.

Addressing the launch of the campaign here at the PM Office, he explained the contours of the campaign, based on Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH); “Cleanliness is half of faith”. The federal cabinet gave the nod for the launch of the campaign in its meeting last month.

The prime minister recalled the crystal clear water streams in Islamabad, the beautiful lush green gardens of Lahore, the clean rivers where people used to fish, but regretted that it all had been polluted, and today rivers, mountains, land, air and water reek of foul smell and heaps of garbage are everywhere.

He said Muslims were known to be exceptionally clean, as it was a demand of their religion, but over the decades, this had been reversed and now we look at awe the neat and clean streets and water streams in Europe and elsewhere. He said it was still doable and recalled how Singapore river which had turned into a sewerage stream was converted to its original beauty.

The prime minister said the campaign would kick off on Saturday, October 13, with the president, prime minister, governors and chief ministers taking the lead in cleaning the country.

He appealed to the media, religious scholars, social workers and media personalities to be part of the campaign and urge the people to clean their surroundings for a healthy environment.

Khan said currently only around 42 per cent of Pakistanis have access to toilets and sanitation facility and many a tourists refrained from visiting the country because of dearth of such facilities.

He said almost 40,000 children die each year because of unclean drinking water, while the cases of hepatitis are rising at an alarming rate across the country.

The prime minister announced a four-tiered campaign that would start from bringing about a change in the mindset and would involve making cleanliness part of the syllabus, besides launching a mass awareness campaign. Dumping sites for waste would be identified and a complete system of waste collection evolved, even down to the village level and efforts would be made to use this waste for generating electricity.

The second tier would include putting in place a monitoring system that would give cash rewards for outstanding cleanliness, while reprimand for those failing to meet the targets. He was optimist that with time and cleanliness all around, the people will themselves realise its importance and will be part of the process.

The third tier would involve wide scale construction of toilets across the country. He said all petrol and CNG stations have been directed to ensure that their public toilets were clean and easily accessible to the people and said the people would be asked to send in pictures of dirty toilets, and action would be taken against those responsible.

He said the under the fourth tier advocacy would be conducted by scouts and volunteers to extend the scope of the campaign to every nook and corner of the country.

He said the Green Pakistan campaign would also form part of the Green and Clean Pakistan. Under the campaign, an effort would be made at reviving the natural forests of Pakistan, besides measures for protecting the country’s wildlife and particularly the endangered species.

Khan said like the success of plantation of one billion trees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, ten billion trees would be planted across the country in next five years. He said these would be the best counter measure to fight the climate change and pointed that Pakistan was listed at 60th place in list of countries that were under threat of this change.

To a question, the prime minister said the government would adopt a multi-pronged approach to address the issue of solid waste management and discharge of effluents from factories and hospitals.