Moving ahead with Modi’s agenda on River Ganga, an integrated Ganga conservation mission called ‘Namami Gange’ in the Budget, which will be set up with an outlay of Rs 2,037 crore for the current year, has been proposed.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the mission is being launched as a substantial amount of money has already been spent in the conservation and improvement of the river, but the efforts have not yielded desired results.
For the first time, the Government will also rope in NRIs in the Clean Ganges Project. It has announced of setting up NRI fund to ‘harness the enthusiasm of the community to contribute towards the conservation of the river Ganga’. It will finance special projects.
A sum of Rs 100 crore has also been set aside for the development of river ghats (banks) and beautification of the river fronts at Kedarnath, Haridwar, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Patna and Delhi in the current fiscal. Riverfronts and Ghats are not only places of rich historical heritage but most of them have deep religious significance in Indian society.