00:00This is what the Ajnaar River looked like at the beginning of 2026.
00:04And this is what the river looks like now.
00:06It is all because of this 20-year-old from Biawra district in Madhya Pradesh.
00:13Ajnaar is a tributary of the Karam River in Biawra.
00:16It has historically faced severe contamination due to illegal dumping of chemical waste by
00:20industrial units. This has adversely affected local agriculture and wildlife.
00:25But Bittu decided to change that. He didn't have any sophisticated equipment
00:28and used bamboo sticks, nets and gloves to fish out waste from the river, one piece at a time.
00:38But once he started posting online about cleaning the river, he also found himself embroiled in
00:43controversy. People accused him of doing it for the views. Bittu said he was interested in simply
00:48cleaning the river and used his social media to set goals for himself. But things took a turn when
00:53Anand Mahindra tweeted about Bittu's river cleaning drive.
00:57But Bittu wasn't starstruck.
01:00It was good, but it didn't help me now. If it was in Bali, it would help me.
01:04Bittu told more he was passionate about the environment as a child and had undertaken
01:09smaller cleaning projects earlier.
01:10I was in my childhood to get rid of the river and clean the water.
01:15In just about two months, Bittu was able to clean up a part of a river that had laid waste
01:20for years. At first, he had help from a few friends, but they eventually dropped out,
01:24leaving Bittu to follow through on his own.
01:36Bittu, just 20 years old, didn't wait for change to happen. He became it.
01:40Long.
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