Dettol and Harpic raise the hygiene flag at Simhastha Kumbh Mela

After successfully partnering with Nashik Kumbh last year to provide hygiene to 30 million pilgrims and save 3.3 million liters of water, Dettol and Harpic have now joined hands with Simhastha Kumbh Ujjain to take the message of hygiene and sanitation to many more pilgrims.

Held every 12 years and considered as one of the world’s largest religious congregations, Simhastha Kumbh Mela is being held from April 22 to May 21 and is expecting around 5 crore pilgrims from across the country. A mass gathering at such scale not only has a heavy impact on the demand for water and leaves the city with acute shortage of water supply, but it also poses a serious health risk to devotees attending it owing to some unhygienic conditions.

As part of its nationwide initiative, ‘Banega Swachh India’, Dettol and Harpic will reach out to pilgrims and educate them about the importance of hand washing and ill-effects of open defecation. On ground volunteers with an efficient water sprayer and sanitisers will be deployed at strategic locations such as food centers, bathing areas, eateries and toilets to ensure people wash their hands before eating their meals and after using a toilet.

In addition, there will be almost 100 toilets which will be maintained by Harpic to provide a solution from open defecation. The volunteers will also be distributing informative education material through flyers to pilgrims and Sadhugrams for raising awareness around healthy hand washing habits. Radio channels are extensively being used to reiterate the importance of hygiene through jingles, which have been successful in building healthy hand washing habits.

Speaking about the initiative, Nitish Kapoor, Regional Director, RB South Asia, said, “As a global leader in consumer health and hygiene, our purpose is to improve hygiene and sanitation in the daily lives of our consumers. Kumbh Mela is the largest congregation of humans anywhere on earth, which poses a huge challenge for sanitation because of the temporary influx of people in vast numbers. After successfully raising awareness amongst 30 million pilgrims at Nashik Kumbh last year, RB is proud to partner with Simhastha Kumbh Ujjain to drive a positive behaviour change towards a Swachh Bharat.”