The World Bank has cleared a credit and loan assistance of $ 1 billion for the ‘Mission Clean Ganga' project.
The Government established the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) in 2009 with the aim of cleaning and conserving the iconic river through a multi-sector programme. The medium-term goal of the programme, which will involve five States of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, is to put a stop to the flow of untreated or industrial waste water into the mainstream of the river by 2020.
It is pointed out that Ganga accounts for one-fourth of India's water resources and its basin is home to more than 400 million people, many of whom revere the river as a living goddess. However, the river is now facing extreme pollution and associated threats to its biodiversity and environmental sustainability.
The World Bank-financed project, apart from helping set up dedicated institutions at the Central and State levels to plan, manage and implement NGRBA programme, will support establishment of a state-of-the-art Ganga Knowledge Centre that will act as a repository of information relevant for the conservation of the river. It will also help strengthen the Central and State pollution control boards for better monitoring of pollution in the river by modernising information systems and providing training to the staff, according to a World Bank statement from Washington.
Four key areas
A major part of the assistance will cover four key areas — waste water collection and treatment, industrial pollution control, solid waste management and riverfront management.
Mr Roberto Zagha, World Bank Country Director for India, said ‘experience elsewhere in the world has shown that river clean-up is a long-term and costly enterprise — the cleaning of the Rhine took almost 20 years and more than €40 billion ; and that of Danube is ongoing, decades after it started.'
The World Bank aid of $ 1 billion complements Rs 500 crore from the Government of India and Rs 1,900 crore from the Governments of the five Ganga mainstream States.
Of the total bank assistance, a credit of $199 million is provided by the International Development Association (IDA) with a maturity period 30 years and a grace period 10 years.
The remaining $801 million is a low-interest loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) with a maturity of 18 years and grace period of five years.