After Clean Ganga, Centre aims to save other rivers

Saving India’s rivers seems to be the Government’s next big goal after setting out on the path to restore Ganga’s pristine glory. Union Environment and Forests Minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday said that the Government will roll out a decision soon to map satellite imagery of each river every year to check whether the river boundary is shrinking due to illegal sand mining.

Addressing an International Conference on Global Environment Issues at Vigyan Bhawan where Chief Justice of India Hl Dattu and Vice President Hamid Ansari were key speakers, Javadekar said that the Government aims to use technology to create a transparent policy regime where policies will be clear and processes will be transparent. 

In this context, he referred to the sand mining mafia, which prevails despite orders passed by the Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the past. “Every year in a month we plan to track satellite maps of each river to know in which places sand is mined in excess. We need to track our policies and with use of technology we can build a transparent system.”

He said that a conscious effort is being made to overcome the image of his Ministry being a “speed breaker” and “roadblock” when he took over. Instead of the “licence permit quota raj” he  talked of changing it into a “public participation” Ministry.  Vice-President Hamid Ansari stressed on the need of sustainable development and drew a visible link between environmental degradation and poverty. CJI Hl Dattu exposed the audience to the kind of environmental threat posing the country and globally due to modern day experiments and innovations.