Swatch Mangaluru fame Swami Ekagamyananda bids adieu to Ramakrishna mutt and city

The swami will join a mutt in Belagavi district on the invitation of its senior seer

Swami Ekagamyananda of Swatch Mangaluru fame bid adieu to the Ramakrishna mutt and Mangaluru at an informal programme on February 8. He will be joining a mutt in Belagavi district in northern Karnataka.

Influenced by Swami Vivekananda, Swami Ekagamyananda joined the Ramakrishna mutt in Belagavi in 2000 as a brahmachari at the age of 17 after completing his first PUC. He was tutored by the then head of Belagavi mutt Swami Purushottamanandaji. After being elevated as a sanyasi, he was posted to Mangaluru in 2005.

Along with senior and contemporary sanyasis at the Ramakrishna mutt in Mangaluru, Swami Ekagamyananda initiated several youth-connect programmes, including workshops for the younger generation. The 150th birth anniversary celebratations from 2009 to 2013 were a milestone in his service, wherein over 100 colleges around Mangaluru were contacted, several seminars were organised and a three-day mega youth convention was organised. Nearly 10,000 youth attended the event held in 2013.

Success of these initiatives, primarily because of the support of Mangalureans, encouraged him and the mutt to take up the Swatch Mangaluru campaign, as part of the Swatch Bharat campaign, on the request of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. The campaign became a role model, not only in Karnataka, but across India, and he was overwhelmed by the encouragement and support from the residents of Mangaluru and the coastal districts.

Following some differences of opinion in the mutt regarding the Ramakrishna Mission continuing with the campaign, he was told to snap connections with Mangala Resource Management Private Limited, a start-up that is into wet and dry waste handling projects in the coastal region. Also, the cleanliness campaign was handed over to the Swatch Mangaluru Foundation, the swami said.

Many mutts had been inviting him over the years to lead their activities, and he eventually accepted the offer of the senior seer of a mutt in Belagavi district, following encouraging words from senior sanyasis and contemporaries in the Ramakrishna mutt. He promised to be in touch with Mangaluru and its residents. He urged his well-wishers to remain in touch with the mutt in Mangaluru.