Guwahati, Sept. 19: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today tweeted a painting by a Class V girl from Assam, Narmada Chetri, saying the 'prize-winning painting is themed on the need for more and more people to join Swachh Bharat Mission'.

Narmada, a student of Gunabhiram Barua LP School in Assam's Nagaon district, told The Telegraph over phone, 'I am so happy. My art teacher and head of my school informed me about it.'

Narmada said she got the idea for her painting from photographs published in newspapers.

The painting was an initiative of Union human resource development ministry to 'promote the message of swachhta (cleanliness) on a massive scale and engage smart, young minds in the Swachh Bharat Mission through national-level essay and painting competitions organised across all the schools on Teachers' Day'.

The painting competition, with the theme Clean India of my Dreams, was organised for students from Classes I to V and the essay competition was in two categories - one for Classes VI to VIII and the other for Classes IX to XII.

The ministry, however, has not officially announced the results of the competition.

The national-level award will be given by the Union ministry of drinking water and sanitation to the best entries on the third anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2.

'Congratulations Narmada Chetri of Nagaon of Class V on this rare recognition from @PMOIndia Sri @narendramodi on your vision of #CleanIndia,' tweeted state education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Narmada's father Prem Bahadur Chetri, who works as a teacher in Rongapara English ME School in Karbi Anglong district, was elated. 'This is really a happy moment. The headmaster of her school called me up with the news,' he said.

'We selected four paintings and forwarded them to the cluster resources centre coordinator who sent them to the higher authorities,' said Robin Boruah, the head of the school that has 90 students. 'I will retire in three months. What can be better news than this before my retirement?'

Sumi Borthakur, the state programme officer of Sarba Siksha Abhiyan, Assam, expressed happiness at the development.

'It is good to see a student from a government school excel at the national level. The news has come at a time when people are talking about the poor performance of the government schools,' she said.

Recently, six government schools from the state were among the 172 from across the country to bag the Swachh Vidyalaya award, she added.