Villages along Ganga to be open-defecation free by 2022

TNN

New Delhi, Sep 13, 2014: As part of its ambitious ’Namami Gange’ programme, the government plans to free all villages along the banks of the river from open defecation by 2022 and extend incentives to states to expand sewerage infrastructure in all 118 urban habitations along the river.

 

Both the schemes will cost the government around Rs 52,700 crore. While Rs 51,000 crore has been earmarked for expanding the sewerage infrastructure, the remaining Rs 1,700 crore will be given as central share to make villages free from open defecation.

 

Villages to be covered under the scheme fall under 1,632 gram panchayats along the river bank in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

 

Besides, the government has also proposed to set up a National Ganga Monitoring Centre and bring out a comprehensive plan to deal with industrial pollution in Kanpur.

 

All these schemes, along with others relating to tourism, ’ghat’ (river front) development and shipping network, will be implemented by different ministries including water resources, drinking water and sanitation, tourism, shipping and urban development.

 

The ministry of water resources made these additional schemes public on its specially designed website for the river Ganga, which was launched on Friday.

 

The new website will provide a digital platform to people to extend their suggestions and tips on good practices to keep the country’s national river clean. Idea of this launch is to involve people in implementing all these schemes of the government’s Ganga rejuvenation programme.

 

Launching the website, water resources minister Uma Bharati said it was an important tool to connect the public with the gigantic task of Ganga rejuvenation.

 

 

She also reiterated the resolve of the Narendra Modi government to rejuvenate the Ganga "within the shortest possible time".

 

The website (nmcg.nic.in) contains a wide rage of information on clean Ganga mission which includes Ganga Manthan, Namami Gange, conservation of pollution project, status of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), Ganga action plan, water quality monitoring, Industrial pollution monitoring, waste water management and comprehensive details of Ganga basin.

 

The bilingual website has a provision to receive feedback from the public where suggestions can be given about Ganga rejuvenation plan. The portal has a separate link -- Gangepedia -- which has all the basic information on the river.

 

"Members of the public can also upload file up to the size of 4 MB along with their suggestions," the water resources ministry said in a statement.

 

This web portal will be the second digital platform for the general public and experts to extend their suggestions on the river Ganga. The PM had in July launched MyGov portal which also carries a separate section on the river Ganga for getting public suggestions.

 

All the schemes to rejuvenate Ganga were suggested by a group of secretaries (GoS) that had submitted its final report on August 20.

 

"While the report is being examined in the ministry, the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has been working in parallel on a draft strategy taking into account all these developments," the water resources ministry said.

 

It said, "As already identified in the report of the GoS, the long-term vision will emanate from the Ganga River Basin Management Plan being prepared by the Consortium of 7 IITs, first version of which is likely to be available by the end of this year".