MUMBAI: The Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan has an ally in India’s largest FMCG , Hindustan Unilever. The ‘Swachh Aadat, Swachh Bharat’ initiative aims to promote health and hygiene, communicating to 75 million people via a mass media ad campaign. An on-ground programme Swachh Basti is currently being piloted in Mumbai and Delhi and intends reaching 200,000 people by end 2015.This initiative gives HUL the opportunity to bring under a single umbrella various projects on brands like Lifebuoy, floor and toilet cleaner Domex and water purifier Pureit. And of course, contribute to a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi, incidentally, is the galvanising factor behind HUL’s participation. HUL chief executive officer Sanjiv Mehta recalls: “When our global CEO Paul Polman was visiting, Modi said you are doing so much work in rural India, but what about urban India? Can you look at mass communication as a means of spreading the message? We went back to the drawing table, had a small team working intensively to understand this and came back with an urban behaviour change programme and mass media campaign.”The company launches its mass media campaign today, aimed at children, typically change agents in families. HUL also intends harnessing its mobile-based radio station aimed at rural India which currently reaches 40 million consumers. Says Mehta of the tagline for the campaign, “‘Haat Mooh aur Bum, Bimari Hogi Kam’ is something we want to see on everyone’s lips.”In addition, HUL’s Swachh Basti is an extensive urban outreach programme being piloted in the slums of Mumbai and Delhi, in association with local municipal authorities. The objective is to educate children and parents about clean habits, via skits, demos and engagement with key stakeholders like local doctors and support groups. Such projects typically peter out, but HUL intends doing extensive pre and post studies, revisiting areas it already covered to ensure the message sinks in. Swachh Basti could be taken nationwide as early as March next year. Citing a recent report on sanitation infrastructure being underutilised, Mehta says, “It is important and necessary, but not sufficient. There has to be a change in habit, behaviour and some very deeply ingrained beliefs.”HUL is not the first or only brand to come aboard Swachh Bharat; Reckitt Benckiser’s Dettol started last year and has earmarked .`100 crore over a five year period for a widely publicised engagement, seen as its attempt to crack the sofar elusive rural market.