Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Uma Bharti, Ministers for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar; Youth Affairs, Sarbanand Sonowal and AYUSH, Shripad Naik will be in the city to attend the start of a two-day national meet to be held at Forest Research Institute from Thursday along with Chief Minister Harish Rawat for DPR preparation on forestry interventions for conservation and cleaning of the Ganga river.
Addressing the media, FRI director Dr Savita said under the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) of the Ministry of Water Resource, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, the FRI has been given the role of augmenting water flow through forestry interventions and to treat the water through biological filters. It is a two- phase programme starting with the project development phase of about six months followed by the implementation phase initially for five years. She informed, “Following the action plan for the first phase, the first consultation meeting in the States of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand were conducted in April and May while the West Bengal meeting is now scheduled in middle of July.
These meetings resulted in identification of various issues specific and common to these states. Experiences learnt from these meetings were shared and deliberated upon while opportunities and constraints were identified in the first national level kick-off meeting of the stakeholders States barring West Bengal at FRI in May. In the national level stakeholders meet for DPR preparation on forestry interventions to be heldon Thursday and Friday at FRI, officials from the five stakeholder states- Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, government officials and experts among others will provide State specific inputs. These inputs will be later integrated by experts after which again we will meet the States’ representatives. A national level meeting will be held again on this project in December,” she said.
The FRI director further informed that along with common public especially the the youth, government and non-government organisations will also play an important role in Clean Ganga Mission.
The help of Nehru Yuva Kendra and other organizations will be taken for planting medicinal and other plans to stop soil erosion leading to reduced siltation in addition to efforts aimed at improving water quality and flow besides encouraging employment and income generation in the Ganga catchment area and basin. The FRI is aiming to finalise the DPR by the end of this year and submit it by January next year, she added.