Where does Namami Gange stand today?

The mission, Namami Gange, to clean India’s national river is a flagship project of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government. He had inaugurated it on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi in May 2014. The focal point of the mission was an integrated conservation mission to arrest pollution and revive the river. Consequently, the Union Cabinet approved the action plan proposed by the Centre to spend Rs 20,000 Crores till 2019-2020 on the clean-up project. 

The implementation of the programme has been divided into three categories: in the short term for immediate visible impact, the medium term for projects to be implemented within 5 years; and the long-term activities to be implemented within 10 years. In two years, the government claims to have spent over Rs 7,000 crore to rid the waters of industrial effluents and sewage. Broadly, the project is being driven through creation of sewage treatment capacity across major cities and towns along Ganga, river-front development, surface cleaning efforts, bio-diversity conservation efforts and afforestation. The government has aimed to create capacity to treat over 4,000 million litres per day of sewage. By summer of this year, 1,600 MLD capacity was available and Centre’s target is to finish 94 STP projects by 2019. 

To plug industrial pollution, Centre has closed down 358 grossly polluting industries but union minister Nitin Gadkari has admitted that there are many newer sources of pollution that are still being added to the project. Realising that without increasing the flow, the Ganga can never be revived, the Centre has mandated the minimum quantity of water — or ecological flow — that various stretches of the river must have all through the year. The new norms would require hydropower projects located along the river to modify their operations to ensure they are in compliance. If implemented, this mandate will ensure robust health of the river.