What happens when a village decides that keeping its streets clean isn't someone else’s job?

In Babojola, a tribal village in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, its residents sweep the village streets three times a day. Plastic is not allowed. Waste is sorted and composted. Someone who drops litter may be fined, and that rule applies to visitors as well as residents.

There is no single annual cleanliness drive that the village waits for. For more than 15 years, Babojola’s residents have treated cleanliness as part of the village’s everyday routine.

It started with one teacher

The effort began about 15 years ago with Madhusudan Marandi, a local school teacher who wanted Babojola to become a model village.

Marandi’s idea was eventually taken up by the community as a shared responsibility. Villagers formed a club to oversee cleanliness and maintain the systems needed to keep it going. They also collected funds to install CCTV cameras, dustbins and solar panels.

Over time, practices that might otherwise have remained........

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