Showing its commitment for the execution of Namami Gange project, known as the dream project of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while taking all on board, the State Government hosted a day-long workshop involving all the stakeholders like the administrative officers, municipal corporation and municipality officers, forest officers and the media persons to make all of them aware of the mission that drove the Centre to embark on the ambitious project.
Significantly, the Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat is the national convener of the project.
In course of the workshop, the executive agencies, involved in the execution of the project, apprised those present of the tasks assigned to them and also dwelt at length on the details of how they would achieve things in the coming days.
While spelling out the objective behind the workshop, the state government officials said that it was being hosted to create awareness of the details of the project being executed under the National Swachh Ganga Mission. They said that things remaining unclear even among the people, the workshop became an imperative. Details about the project involving all the seven districts of Garhwal region and 15 important cities located in them were presented to the stakeholders in course of the workshop. Among those who were present were the district administrative officers, district magistrate Dehradun, CDOs Dehradun, Uttarkashi, Tehri and Chamoli districts, forest conservator, headquarter and divisional forest officers of Rudraprayag and Tehri districts, Garhwal Manda Municipality executive officer, the officers of Uttarkahand Peyjal nigam, Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan, state irrigation department, forest department, Swajal PMU, district PMUs and Namami Gange Uttarakhand officers and some experts.
During the workshop, all the participants were administered oath for the cleanliness and conservation of Ganga. Programme director of the state project management group and the project director, Namami Gange, Dr Raghav langer made presentation about the ongoing work and approved works under the project. later, all the executive agencies made their presentations and status of the ongoing project. Uttarakhand Peyjal Nigam disclosed that municipal waste water management, state irrigation department and Wapcaus limited are building embankments and crematoriums. Forest Research Institute (FRI) apprised that under the National Swachh Ganga Mission, they have been assigned the task under forest intervention scheme and the state forest department has been made the executive agency. Ashwatch Infratech Private limited said that they were busy in cleaning the bottom of Ganga in Haridwar and Rishikesh. The representatives of the German government- funded project- Support To Ganga Rejuvenation- also presented the contours of the work assigned to them.
During the workshop, a brochure containing information about do’s and don’ts regarding visiting the river banks and bathing in the river was distributed among the stakeholders.
The people visiting the banks of the river and bathing in it have been asked to use jute bags instead of polythenes. Besides, stress was laid on garbage management in the villages, building organic compost pits, plantation along the embankments of the river and large-scale plantation of fruit and medicinal plants, building toilets in their houses, planting saplings on the occasion of birthdays and religious festivals and making soak pits to manage kitchen and bathrooms’ water.
Among the things the people should refrain from are using soaps and shampoos while bathing in the river, immersion of the hawan items and flowers, washing the utensils in the river, bathing their pet animals, dumping old clothes and garbage in the sewer lines that flow into the river and also dumping the dead bodies in the river.
Talking to The Pioneer, Dr langer said that despite the project receiving hype in the media, the people, by and large, are hardly aware of what it really stands for and what the governments have been doing by way of executing it.
Besides, they must be enlightened over the roles they can play in the process of execution of the project by conforming to some rudimentary norms of keeping their households and their neighborhood clean.