Tuesday saw orange (colour of Bajrang Bali Hanuman) bed sheets in the wards at PL Sharma district hospital in ... Read More

MEERUT: Every Tuesday, PL Sharma district hospital in Meerut will have orange bedsheets on all its 300 beds in the wards . After all, orange is the colour of Bajrang Bali Hanuman. Similarly, Thursday being associated with Sai Baba will see yellow bed sheets.

Why? Hospital authorities have come up with a "seven-colour scheme" that will see bedsheets on each day of the week given the colour associated with various Hindu gods. This is being done in the name of ‘Operation Indradhanush’ under the Swachch Bharat campaign that advises all hospitals to have bedsheets in different colours based on the VIBGYOR (violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red) pattern so that these are changed every day. Just that hospital authorities in Meerut have tweaked the direction to bring Hindu gods in.

As many as 4,900 bedsheets, costing about Rs 12 lakh, have been purchased for the purpose. Dr PK Bansal, superintendent-in-chief at the district hospital, said, “Under kaya kalp scheme of Swachch Bharat campaign, Operation Indradhanush has been introduced wherein we have been told to get bedsheets of different colours for each day of the week. But instead of following the VIBGYOR pattern, I chose to go by the colours associated with Hindu gods and goddesses.”

Different colours have been finalized for the seven days of the week. While white, the colour of Shiva, has been selected for Monday, it is orange (Hanuman's colour) on Tuesday. It is green for Buddha on Wednesday, yellow for Sai Baba on Thursday, and blue -- the colour of Shani Dev -- on Saturday. As they found no particular god or goddess associated specially for Sunday and Friday, the two days have on random been given purple and pink.

“The basic motive is to not have one colour for all seven days and as far as that is getting fulfilled, I don’t see an issue with the thought behind the colour scheme," Bansal said.