State leads in executing Ganga plans

KOLKATA: The Mamata Banerjee government has a reason to smile. A recent meeting held in Delhi shows that Bengal tops in executing the clean Ganga mission schemes among the five states through which the Ganges flows. The other four states are Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.
The meeting was held by officials of the ministry of water resources to review the performance of the five Ganga states in implementing National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) schemes.According to officials, the data shows that Bengal, which also has the highest number of sanctioned projects, has completed 23 out of the 30 sanctioned projects that are being implemented in 24 towns across the state, with a sanctioned cost of Rs 1352 crore. Only Uttarakhand comes next, completing two projects out of the 16 sanctioned projects being implemented in 11 towns there, with a sanctioned cost of Rs 251.21 crore.
Uttar Pradesh is yet to complete any of the 15 sanctioned and ongoing projects. Bihar is implementing 12 schemes and Jharkhand one.
It was discussed in the meeting that a more Ganga-centric multi-pronged strategy would be followed to prevent river pollution.
Selected stretches will be properly monitored with CCTVs to check activities on the river side and the quality of water.