The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti in conjunction with APAC News Network organized the ‘Yamuna Par Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ on August 16th at Zero Pushta, Sonia Vihar along River Yamuna. The Union Minister for Jal Shakti Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat presided in the gracious presence of Shri Pankaj Kumar, Secretary, Do WR, RD & GR, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Shri G. Asok Kumar, Director General, NMCG and Shri Ganji K.V. Rao, Director General, Tourism, Ministry of Tourism.
Several new initiatives were launched during the event under the Arth-Ganga concept. These included the virtual launch of Jalaj initiative under Arth-Ganga by the Hon. Minister for Jal Shakti at 26 locations out of the proposed 75 locations proposed during this year on the main stem of Ganga basin states – Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
An MoU was signed between NMCG and Sahakar Bharati to achieve the vision of a sustainable and viable economic development by public participation, creation and strengthening of local cooperatives directing their cooperation towards realizing the mandate of Arth Ganga.
A tourism related portal ImAvatar was also launched to promote livelihood opportunities along the Ganga basin by promoting Arth Ganga initiative through tourism, marketing of local products, both agriculture and handicrafts, sustainability of ghats and other assets created by NMCG.
Dissecting Arth-Ganga
Arth-Ganga concept, espoused by the Hon. Prime Minister during the 1st National Ganga Council meeting in 2019 in Kanpur, is being developed into an economic model for sustainable river rejuvenation. At the helm of the Arth Ganga concept is people-river connect that aims to firmly establish a collaborative relationship between the river and the people. The central idea of “Arth Ganga” is linking people and Ganga through the bridge of economics in line with the slogan of “Banking on River Ganga”. These activities are being undertaken under “Namami Gange”, the flagship program of the Government of India to clean Gang and its tributaries.
Under Arth Ganga, six verticals are being worked upon:
- a)Zero Budget Natural Farmingthat includes chemical-free farming for 10 kms on either side of the river, generating “more income, per drop”, ‘Gobar Dhan’ for farmers,
- b)Monetization and Reuse of Sludge &Wastewaterthat envisages reuse of treated water for irrigation; industrial purposes and revenue generation for ULBs,
- c)Livelihood Generation Opportunities such as ‘Ghat Mein Haat’, promotion of local products, Ayurveda, medicinal plants, capacity building of volunteers like Ganga Praharis,
- d)Public Participationto ensure increased synergies between stakeholders,
- e)Cultural Heritage & Tourismthat looks to introduce boat tourism through community jettis, promotion of yoga, adventure tourism etc. and Ganga Artist, and
- f)Institutional Building by enhancing the local capacities for better decentralized water governance.
Impact of Arth-Ganga Initiatives
Jalaj is being implemented in association with Wildlife Institute of India. A trained cadre of Ganga Praharis has been created from among the local people by WII for biodiversity conservation and Ganga rejuvenation. Jalaj, innovative mobile livelihood centre, are aimed at aligning the skill enhancement activities with Ganga conservation. Jalaj is visualized as a model for livelihood diversification, through promotion of local produce and facilitates stakeholder participation in ecological and economic spheres for river conservation in line with “Arth-Ganga” objectives.
Some of the major objectives of the MoU between NMCG and Sahakar Bharati envisages the identification of 75 villages in five states on the main stem to be designated as ‘Sahakar Ganga Grams’, promote natural farming among the farmers, FPOs and Cooperatives in States along Ganga and generate ‘More Net-Income Per Drop’, facilitate marketing of natural farming/organic produce under brand Ganga through creation of market linkages, promote people-river connect through economic bridge etc.
Both NMCG and ImAvatar would work together in the areas of public participation through religious and spiritual tourism and creating market linkages. Digitalizing NMCG and Namami Gange touch points and assets is also part of the collaboration.
The launch of Digital Dashboard for DGCs Performance Monitoring System by the Hon. Union Minister for Jal Shakti Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in the august presence of Shri Swatantra Dev Singh, Cabinet Minister for Jal Shakti, U.P. on 6th April 2022 was a step in the right direction with respect to enhancing public participation, one of the aims of Arth Ganga. District Ganga Committee Forum (DGC – 4M (Monthly, Mandated, Monitored and Minuted) meetings was launched to ensure regular interactions at the district level on the important aspects and activities related to Ganga involving all stakeholders. Since the launch of DGC Forum, meetings are being in DGCs along River Ganga and its tributaries on 2nd Friday of every month.
Yamuna Par Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav
The event felicitated the winners of the Ganga Quest 2022 and the new River Champ course was launched on the Continuous Learning and Activity Portal (CLAP) by the Hon. Union Minister. Ganga Quest is an online quiz aimed at enhancing knowledge and sensitizing the children and youth about various aspects of River Ganga. The Ganga Quest 2022 was hosted on CLAP4Ganga, the Continuous Learning and Activity Portal, an initiative under Namami Gange.
Nine winners of three categories of Ganga Quest were felicitated including Mawiya Srivastava (1st prize), Bandana Kaur (2ndprize) and Monika Swami (3rd prize) in Category-I: Up to Class VIII, Anirudh Nair (1st prize), Renu Saini (2nd prize) and Pratik Adarsh (3rdprize) in Category II, Class IX-XII and Sanjay Holani (1st prize), Preeti Maheshwari (2nd prize) and Shubham Mantri (3rd prize) in Category III, Adults. Besides, top ten schools and institutions in terms of participation including USO, CBSE, Navodaya and Kendra Vidhyalaya were also felicitated for their involvement in the Ganga Quest 2022. This online quest witnessed about a record number of 1.7 lakh participants.
The event also witnessed dance/skit performance by students of Nursing School, Delhi, Geet performance by students of Amity University, Noida, cultural programme by Rangsarthi team, launch of a movie trailer on ‘A Film on the Plight of Our Rivers’, plantation and nukkad activities. Students, NGOs, paramilitary, DJB, MCD, sports enthusiasts, kayaking experts etc. participated in the event. Tri-color balloons were also released to mark the occasion.
Role of Namami Gange
This event is part of the campaign being run by NMCG on Yamuna ghats in Delhi to spread awareness about cleaning of River Yamuna. The cleaning of tributaries of River Ganga, especially, Yamuna, is one of the focus areas of Namami Gange Programme. While 318 MLD STP at Coronation Pillar has been commissioned recently, 3 other main STPs on Yamuna funded by NMCG are targeted to be completed by December 2022. These include Rithala, Kondli and Okhla, which is one of the biggest STPs in Asia. This will help in preventing sewage from drains falling into Yamuna.
A total of 12 projects for the treatment of 1385 MLD sewage have been taken up at a cost of about Rs. 2354 crore under Namami Gange Program in Delhi, to abate the pollution in River Yamuna.On the occasion of the International Yoga Day, ‘Ghat Par Yoga initiative was launched at Signature Bridge in New Delhi on River Yamuna which saw inspiring participation from the local people and other stakeholders. It is now extended as ‘Har Hafte Hoga, Ghat Pe Yoga’ in Ganga basin states.
Under the Namami Gange Programme, 378 projects have been sanctioned till July 2022 at a total cost of Rs. 31173.08 crore for different activities, out of which 215 projects have been completed. For the first time, sewerage projects were sanctioned under Hybrid Annuity Mode to optimize the performance of the assets. New concepts like ‘One City One Operator’ were introduced for long-term sewerage management.
The positive impacts of the Namami Gange Programme have now begun to come. As on date, 96 out of 163 sewerage infrastructure projects have been completed, resulting in creation of 1770.85 MLD of STP capacity and laying of 4174.78 km sewerage network. As on April 2022, all 2706 Grossly Polluting Industries (GPIs) in river Ganga basin have been inspected, showcause notices have been issued to 144 GPIs while closure directions have been issued to 18 GPIs by the SPCBs/PCC. Several drains that were eye sores to local people, have also been tapped, most notably the infamous Sisamau Nala in Kanpur and Chandreshwar Nala in Muni-Ki-Reti.
The water quality of River Ganga has improved as shown by improved levels of Dissolved Oxygen (DO) at 32 locations and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) & Faecal Coliform at 44 and 25 locations respectively. As per the CPCB data as on 2021, none of the Ganga Stretches are in priority category I to IV and only two stretches are in Category V. Water Quality Median data for 2021 (January to May), of river Ganga shows that the major indicator- Dissolved Oxygen (DO), has been found to be within acceptable limits for primary bathing quality across all 84 monitoring locations in the main stem of river Ganga.
Similarly, other important river health indicators i.e. Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Faecal Coliform (FC) have also been found to be within acceptable limits across 68 monitoring locations (out of 84 locations) and 33 monitoring locations (out of 80 locations) respectively. Marked improvement has been seen in 2021 as compared to 2015 in the identified polluted stretches of Haridwar to Sultanpur (<3mg/lBoD in 2021 against 4.2-5.8 in 2015), Kannauj to Varanasi (1.8-4.2 mg/lBoD against 3.8-16.9 in 2015), Buxar to Bhagalpur (<3 mg/lBoD against 7.8-27 in 2015) and Triveni to Diamond Harbour (1.3-4.3 mg/lBoD in 2021 against 3.1-5.8 in 2015).
The completion of 92 sewerage projects out of 162 in June 2022 as compared to 1 and 28 respectively in 2014, creation of 1642 MLD capacity in June 2022 against 110.5 MLD in 2014 and laying of 4156 km of sewerage network in June 2022 against 458 in 2014 is a testament of the work being done under Namami Gange on war-footing.
