Minister brings his trademark innovations to bear on Ganga cleaning
Trust Nitin Gadkari to gets things done. The Union minister who also holds charge of the Ganga Rejuvenation portfolio has used his famed persuasive skills to get top NRI businessmen in the United Kingdom to 'adopt' sections of the banks of the Ganga to develop, beautify and maintain. The idea is brilliant for its sheer simplicity. long stuck in bureaucratic inefficiency and pathetic funds utilisation, the mission to clean the Ganga that started under Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s and was prioritised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, seems finally to have got a 'doer' in the right place.
Gadkari apparently used his considerable political heft to ensure Vedanta's Anil Agarwal signed up to take care of the Patna riverfront and the Foresight Group's Ravi Mehrotra will look after the Kanpur stretch along India's longest and most sacred river. The business houses will work on the plan already in place for these sections of the riverfront and will be free to change any aspect of it in consultation with the ministry. According to Gadkari: “For 15 years, they will be responsible for maintenance and operation.” What's more, the demonstration effect of this move has also resulted in other big business houses expressing an interest in taking on responsibility to rejuvenate various stretches of the Ganga waterfront across its length.
In a sense, this is the most apposite solution to cutting the red tape that has stifled the best-laid plans of governments and choked the Ganga. Even a cursory dekko at the funds provided for keeping India's lifeline clean and flowing shows the problem is not monies. For the 2017-18 financial year, the allocation for the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation was raised by more than 11 per cent, up from Rs 6201 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 6887 crore. The allocation for the NamamiGange programme too went up from Rs 2150 crore to Rs 2250 crore. It is clear that the lack of proper implementation of various plans by a creaking, inefficient and self-serving Indian bureaucracy from the very top to the lowest level has been responsible for India's inability to protect one of its most vital natural assets.
The usual suspects, of course, will moan about the involvement of private players in this national project basically because they will baulk at the efficiency of the private sector which is sure to show them up. Canards too may be forthcoming against the businessmen, with some circles expected to see sniffing of noses at the money bags. They are all too be ignored or better still may be informed that the Ganga washes away all sins, including the imagined.