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This story is from August 20, 2014

River Ganga will be free from most of its pollution within three years: Uma Bharti

Union water resources Uma Bharti said the river would be free from most of its pollution within three years and it would have uninterrupted flow by that time.
River Ganga will be free from most of its pollution within three years: Uma Bharti
NEW DELHI: Keeping Supreme Court's deadline in mind, the government may come out with a blue-print of its Ganga rejuvenation plan by the weekend. This even as Union water resources minister Uma Bharti on Wednesday emphasized that the river would be free from most of its pollution within three years.
“We want to rejuvenate the river in three years”, Bharti said, assuring that her ministry would deal with the pollution “caused by industries and sewage” in most urgent manner so that at least one stream of Ganga would attain its “uninterrupted flow” by that time.

She also announced that the year 2015-16 would be observed as “water conservation year” which would give an impetus to her government's commitment to not only rejuvenate the Ganga along with other rivers across the country but also “save water” by involving citizens through a public movement.
The minister, while inaugurating an international seminar on water risk and stewardship in India, admitted that at some places “the sacred water of the river Ganga is not even fit for consumption by animals” at present and set a target of three years to change the situation.
READ ALSO: Tourism to be major part of Ganga rejuvenation plan
How her ministry would do all this in three years would be reflected in the blueprint for the river clean-up. The apex court had on August 13 set a two-week timeline for the government to come up with a road map for making the longest river of the country pollution free.
It is expected that the blue-print will also incorporate a few important suggestions forwarded by concerned citizens and experts to the government on its digital platform MyGov. It has already flagged some of the suggestions which are learnt to have gained support during inter-ministerial consultations.

READ ALSO: Government showing no urgency to clean Ganga: SC
“The Ganga blueprint on river cleaning will eventually be replicated to clean all the polluted rivers across the country”, said an official, adding certain river-specific variation would obviously be there keeping in mind topography and course of the rivers in different states.
Delegates during the inauguration of the 'Ganga Manthan-National Dialogue on Ganga' organized by the National Mission for Clean Ganga, in New Delhi (PTI photo)
Official records show that there are 150 polluted river stretches across the country with Maharashtra being on top of the list with 28 such stretches on different rivers followed by Gujarat (19) and Uttar Pradesh (12). The level of contamination in these stretches is so high that it cannot support any aquatic life.
These stretches are located in almost all parts of the country except Jammu & Kashmir and couple of Union Territories and northeastern states including Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

The official said though many projects were underway in states to clean those polluted stretches under various central schemes, the blueprint on Ganga clean-up would provide a new dimension and approach to those efforts under the new government.
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About the Author
Vishwa Mohan

Vishwa Mohan is Senior Editor at The Times of India. He writes on environment, climate change, agriculture, water resources and clean energy, tracking policy issues and climate diplomacy. He has been covering Parliament since 2003 to see how politics shaped up domestic policy and India’s position at global platform. Before switching over to explore sustainable development issues, Vishwa had covered internal security and investigative agencies for more than a decade.

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