Court gives Centre time till Sept 3 to come up with foolproof plan
The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Government to spell out the road map for its ambitious Ganga cleaning project within three weeks, by September 3. Having expected a sense of urgency from the new Government, particularly when Clean Ganga project was part of NDA’s manifesto, the court was pained to note that the files relating to the project were still in the process of being shifted from the Environment Ministry to the Water Resources Ministry.
“In this matter where there is urgency, you are showing no urgency. Ganga cleaning is an issue of national concern. And you are still shuttling the matter between two Ministries,” the Bench headed by Justice TS Thakur told Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who appeared for the Centre.
Kumar informed the court that the Centre required two weeks to procure documents which were in transit. He required them to file an additional affidavit informing the progress of work done so far in cleaning Ganga. However, advocate MC Mehta, on whose petition the court began to monitor the Ganga Action Plan, informed the court that the decision to transfer the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) to the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation from the Ministry of Environment was taken on August 4.
The Bench wished to know whether the Centre was serious on its promise to clean the holy river. “People are looking for some response from this Government. There are some issues which need to be on the front burner but are kept on back burner. We don’t want to see that this Government too feels the way the last Government felt about this case.”
The Solicitor General assured the court that by September 3, the next date of hearing, the Centre would present a comprehensive plan on how to go about cleaning up the river extending to 2,500 kilometres.
The SC asked the Centre to consider taking up the project in patches. The Bench, also comprising Justices Adarsh Goel and R Bhanumati, said, “To clean the river in one go will be a difficult task. We don’t know if it can be cleaned say 200 km in six months.” This could even be verified by taking sample of water from the river in that stretch. Central Pollution Control Board informed the court that besides industrial waste, domestic waste was being directly dumped into the river. Its counsel Vijay Panjwani requested the court to consider an alternative to the expensive method to set up Sewage Treatment Plants as it had proved to be a huge drain on money with no effective remedy.