NEW DELHI: Vice-President
Venkaiah Naidu invoked Mahatma Gandhi’s call for Swachhta on Monday as he appealed to countries to have treaties for nabbing and extradition of economic fugitives, who flee to other countries after committing crimes in their own land.
Addressing representatives from over 50 countries at a sanitation conference, Naidu said there was a need to have complete cleanliness with regard to “body, mind and money”. He said, “Body has to be clean..mind also has to be clean and pious...and money also has to be clean. You need to have a clean system. This doesn’t apply to India alone, but to the entire globe, particularly to the developing countries. You need to go for a campaign to fight against corruption and black money. You need to see to it that everything is brought into the system. Countries must have agreement to share information of ill gotten money stored somewhere and finally have the trail of such money.”
Naidu also reached out to representatives from different countries while appealing that they sign bilateral treaties to take care of economic fugitives, “who do crime here and take shelter in other countries.”
The Vice-President’s comment came at a time when India has been trying hard to bring back three major economic fugitives —
Nirav Modi,
Vijay Mallya and Mehul Choksi who are wanted in cases of huge financial frauds.
On the success of
Swachh Bharat Mission, Naidu said, the campaign has been a great unifier in a country having more than 1.2 billion people. “He (Prime Minister) led from the front and his countrymen followed dutifully and wholeheartedly. There is still some distance to travel, but we are committed and India is on track to achieve open defecation free status by 2019,” he added.
Naidu said building toilets is only one and a physical aspect, what is more important is a ‘cultural revolution’. “This culture of clean living has been heralded through intensive behaviour change campaigns," he said.
