Govt working on new Ganga law: Uma Bharati

The Government is working on a new law to lay down guidelines for cleaning the Ganga, the Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharati informed Parliament on Monday.

Responding to questions in the Rajya Sabha, Bharati said the new law has been submitted to the Ministry and discussions on it are underway.

Bharati also assured members in the Upper House that after various initiatives taken by the central government for Ganga river cleaning, its results will start showing in 2018 as promised earlier.

Cleaning of the river is a huge task and cannot be compared to cleaning a river Thames or Rhine, where people do not take a dip like in the Ganga where about 60 crore people bathe every year, Bharati said.

The Government had earlier formed a committee to prepare the draft of the new Ganga Act, which aims at speeding implementation of Namami Gange programme and laying down guidelines to rid the holy river of silt and pollutants.

The committee was headed by Justice (Retd) Girdhar Malviya, which has since prepared the draft and submitted it to the Ministry which is examining it further.

The committee was entrusted with the responsibility of preparing the draft law that should have provisions to ensure cleanliness and uninterrupted flow of Ganga.