Union Minister for Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari said that the Namami Gange project would succeed in its objective of cleaning 70 to 80 percent of the river by March 2019.
“I know 2019 is election year and people will draw their own inferences from my statement. We are committed to cent percent cleaning of the river by December next year. Cleaning the Ganga is our top priority while the next priority is to maintain flow in the river through Aviral Ganga,’’ said Gadkari while addressing the media through video conferencing from Delhi where media persons from Varanasi, Dehradoon and Patna also joined in.
“There is a perception that nothing is being done to clean the Ganga. We want to assure people that we are working in each state and district along Ganga. We are also working for cleaning the ghats along the river besides cleaning the tributaries of Ganga and seasonal nullahs,’’ said the Union minister.
“The process of execution of Namami Gange project was initially slow. The announcement of Rs 20,000 crore of non-lapsable fund was made in 2014 while the actual work started in 2015-16 as National Mission for Clean Ganga was set up in October 2016. So far projects worth over Rs 20,000 crore have been sanctioned and their Detailed Project Report have been completed. So far the actual expenditure on the project has been 20 percent,’’ said Gadkari.
“Ganga is a symbol of our religious life, heritage and culture. We are doing our best to achieve 100 percent cleaning of the holy river. Right now, the project is focusing on liquid waste management to be followed by solid waste management to prevent the flow of garbage into the river,” he said.
listing Kanpur city as the biggest polluter of Ganga, Gadkari said, “At least 70 percent of pollution in Ganga comes from 10 cities and Kanpur is on the top as Sisamau drain brings maximum sewage into Ganga. The 10 most polluting cities include Haridwar, Allahabad, Varanasi, Farrukhabad, Bhagalpur, Kolkatta, and Howrah.”
“So far, sewage treatment plants (STP) with capacity of cleaning 1,600 MlD sewage have been completed. He said with an estimated cost of Rs 1,700 crore STP with total capacity of 3,256 MlD are in various stages of execution.
If sewage flowing into Ganga from drains and polluting industries is not treated and stopped then as much as 3,600 MlD of waste will flow into the Ganga daily,’’said the minister.
Complaining that his ministry was not getting required cooperation from state governments for identifying drains directly flowing into the river, Gadkari said, “ We have taken services of Google for identifying such nullahas (drains) and one such drain is Sisamau nullah in Kanpur which people know even in london.’’
“The objective of Ganga cleaning is conversion of waste into wealth and supplying recycled water to urban local bodies, thermal power plants of NTPC and methane gas to Indian Oil Corporation produced from bio digesters,’’ said Gadkari.
Union minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Uma Bharti, who earlier held the portfolio, said, “My ministry is working on ODF (open defecation free) Plus project in all villages along the Ganga and all these villages in UP have been declared ODF.
“Over 4,400 villages across 55 districts of five states are covered by the ODF Plus scheme. Scheme for liquid and solid waste management are being implemented along with tree plantation and making them plastic free,’’ said Uma Bharti.