The Centre’s new law to protect the Ganga from pollution may include criminal and civil penal provisions.
“Four drafts are already with us and a final one is being readied,” said an official in the Water Resources Ministry, without giving more details.
Rapped by the Supreme Court last year for “slow progress” on cleaning up the Ganga, the Union Cabinet last week cleared the five-year Namami Gange programme with a budget of ₹20,000 crore (including funds from the World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency).
Of this, ₹7,272 crore is for completing ongoing projects and ₹12,728 crore for new initiatives, such as creating sewerage and sanitation infrastructure. Since 1985, the government has spent over ₹4,000 crore on the programme, the Mission said in a presentation to the media here on Monday, pointing out that the earlier programme did not yield the desired results, as it lacked “local ownership”.
To speed up the process, the National Mission for Clean Ganga plans to float tenders by June for setting up sewage treatment plants in 68 towns situated along the river.
“Work is already underway in 50 towns, and by June next year, all 118 towns will be covered,” the official said, adding that municipal waste and industrial waste account for close to 90 per cent of pollution, and was the biggest challenge facing the Mission.
“By 2018-19, we should be able to provide functional and sustainable sewage treatment plants with capacity of 4,000 million litres per day, tapping all 144 major drains discharging pollutants into the river,” the official said. Under the plan, drain water carrying municipal waste is diverted, treated in plants and flowed back into the river.
Surface cleaning“In June, eight pilot projects on river surface cleaning, including religious waste, are set to take off in Varanasi, Kanpur, Allahabad, Mathura-Vrindavan, Haridwar, Patna, Sahibganj and Nabadweep,” said the official.
Heeding the Prime Minister’s call for ‘Jan-Bhaagidaari’ (people’s participation), the Mission also plans to rope in boatmen and local communities from 1,647 village panchayats and 118 towns along the river to lift surface trash. It plans to a hold a CSR conclave shortly to tap corporate funds for providing equipment, such as trash skimmers, aerators, for the purpose.
The Mission has also set aside ₹400 crore to set up four battalions of the Ganga Eco Task Force, a territorial army of ex-servicemen, to be headed by a serving Army officer. The task force will patrol the river and keep tabs on surface pollutants as well as the sewage treatment plants.