Raps the Union environment ministry for doing very little for its clean-up
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up Union environment ministry over its apathy towards river Ganga despite the government coughing up over Rs900 crore on the Ganga Action Plan (GAP), which promised to clean up the holy river.
The Comptroller and Auditor General had also unearthed lacuna in GAP expenditures. Referring to 2002 CAG expose, the judges said: “In the plan, crores have been marked as spent to improve the water quality, but going by the report, the water quality has further deteriorated and the industrial pollution has increased.”
A bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal issued notices to the Ganges basin states — UP, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Delhi, Haryana and MP — to file their status reports on the plan by October 31. The SC noted that various government-appointment committees also couldn’t ensure a cleaner Ganga.
A Central Ganga Authority headed by the PM, the Steering Committee under the Secretary, Planning Commission, and the National River Conservation Directorate are responsible for the maintenance of the river.
“If this is the state of affairs of the scheme monitored by the court, what will happen to those schemes which are not monitored by the court,” the Judges observed, adding “same is the state of the river Yamuna, for whose cleansing, hundred of crores of rupees have been spent.”
Earlier in April last, the Allahabad HC took cognisance of a petition by some Hindu religious leaders alleging neglect of the river by the government. The HC had warned the state against uncontrolled flow of sewage into the Ganga and asked the Mulayam Singh Government to submit a report on the action taken by it.
As per a recent official report, only 39 percent of the primary target of the GAP, which the Union government had started to cleanse the river in 1986, could be met so far. The World Health Organisation says one person dies every minute due to water-born diseases in the Ganga river basin that’s home to some 400 million people, who depend on the river afor livelihood and sustenance.
Comments