The man who quit his job for Swachh Bharat

Meet Sujith Reddy, who quit his job, and is now focusing on cleaning up to help farmers generate fertilisers and electricity
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi began the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, he was probably just looking to awaken conscience of Indians. But he might have never imagined a 23-yearold from the city quitting his job to take this campaign one step further. Meet Sujith Reddy, who left his job at a BPO to do a 150 km Swachh Bharat campaign, within the city.
“Three months ago, I heard that a farmer had attempted suicide due to crop failure at my grandfather's village in Vemulavada, Karimnagar district. That disturbed me deeply . I researched on the Internet and discovered that in the last 10 years, 350,000 ryots committed suicide in India!“ says Sujith. He then found out that many countries are converting garbage into electricity and biogas, which would be helpful for the farmers. “I researched and found out that garbage collected in India in one day can be converted into two lakh cylinders filled with biogas -this is enough energy for one state for a day. At a time when waste can be converted into something so useful, all we're doing is littering,“ shares the BCom graduate.
That's when he decided to start his fight for farmers and convert waste into energy and fertilisers -and the first step was Swachh Bharat campaign. “I bought surgical gloves and supported by my cousin, Manoj Reddy , we began the 150 km journey from Alwal. After touching Begumpet, Ameerpet, Kukatpally , AS Rao Nagar and other localities, we plan to end it in Suchitra, Bowenpally . As of today , we complete 12 days and have covered more than 40 km," shares Sujith, who explains that they are visiting bus stops, schools and colleges to spread awareness on importance of not littering. “My main aim isn't just completing the 150 km. It is making people take up responsibility -and that starts with segregating garbage at home into biodegradable and nonbiodegradable waste. We go to stores on these roads and ask them to keep a dustbin outside, so people can put their garbage into it. We go back and check whether they're keeping their word or not. And I'm proud to say that 90 percent of the shopkeepers do it,“ beams the campaigner. But not all are as accommodating.“A lot of people ask us `Who are you to tell us? Are you the chief minister?' We also noticed that a lot of shopping malls just push out their rubbish onto the road! As a common man, I can only plead with them."
Sujith says a lot of people have been supportive. “On day four, when we were cleaning Begumpet, a man came up to us and started asking who we were and whether we were associated with any corporate or institution. After we answered in the negative, he asked us, “Do you have any uniform?" We explained to him that all this was self-funded and that we only want to spend money on our food. When he got to know that we were planning on this for 150 km, he took us to his shop, which printed tshirts and gave us 25 of them," he says with a smile. Not just common men, but even those in uniform too encouraged them. “We met Koteshwar Rao, a traffic cop in Begumpet. He was so happy to see what we were doing. At that time, we used handkerchiefs to cover our noses.Looking at that, he gave us 10 pollution masks. These are the things that keep us going," smiles Sujith, who admits that in this world of selfies, he too puts up his updates on social networking site. So, what's the next step? “My professor suggested that I go to villages and speak to farmers, teaching them about making fertilisers and how garbage can be converted to biogas. That's my mission," says the 23-year-old.