Trash skimmers at high rates for Ganga cleaning

The Centre may end up spending more on its river surface cleaning programme, part of their ambitious Namami Gange project, by hiring trash skimmers at exorbitant rates.

The issue of hiring “very costly” trash skimmers was raised at the sixth meeting of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) on July 4, chaired by Union water minister, Uma Bharti. The river surface cleaning was initiated last month at five locations — Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna and Mathura — so far, with plans to start it at 20 more locations soon.

Noting the concern raised in the meeting by Abhishek Mishra, the minister of vocational education and skill development of Uttar Pradesh government, that the “river surface cleaning through hiring of trash skimmers may be very costly and instead the same may be purchased,” the NGRBA members were of the view that the outcome of the same be “analysed along with a cost-benefit analysis.”

Vice-chairman of Niti Ayog, Arvind Panagariya, summed up the discussion by saying: “Owing to the immediate requirements of river surface cleaning, we may go ahead with hiring of machines as planned. However, for future deployment, a detailed cost-benefit analysis may be done.”

The government has been nervous on the mundane progress on its clean Ganga mission, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s projects.

Experts believe that in a bid to hurriedly achieve some targets on the clean Ganga project, the decision-making is being done in haste and that the government has no substantial roadmap to go ahead.

Sources in the water ministry said that at five locations where these machines were hired, each one is costing the government about `35-40 lakh per month.

For the first round, these have been taken on rent for a period of six months. “Rent for one machine for six months would come up to approximately the same amount the government will have to spend on buying a trash skimmer for approximately Rs 2.5-3 crore,” the source in the water ministry said, adding, “It is, however, not clear whether six months would be enough to completely clean the surface at one location.”

Experts believe that in a bid to hurriedly achieve some targets on the clean Ganga project, the decision-making is being done in haste and that the government has no substantial roadmap to go ahead.

Manoj Mishra, convener of the NGO, Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, said: “This government has no clue as to what to do and how to do it. As a result nothing is happening on the ground and in a hurry they are taking steps that are not producing any results.”

He further said, “The government is not able to do anything. They lack any feasible, worth-while and time-bound roadmap.”

He also added: “It is unfortunate that the government would misspend the money finding out later that it was not the right thing. It will be a repetition of Ganga Action Plan and Yamuna Action Plan where tons of money was spent but nothing was achieved.”

A source in the ministry pointed out: “Trash skimmer is not environment-friendly as it runs on diesel and makes a lot of noise, jeopardizing the biodiversity of the location where it is put in action.” In addition to this, the expert said, “Also, using these machines may increase the risk of damaging the aquatic life as it cuts whatever comes in its way. There are chances that it could lead to mutilation of floating dead bodies in the river. There may be other environment friendly options available. However, it seems that the government did not do any substantial research before taking this decision.”