Supreme Court seeks verifiable progress on the 30-year-old Ganga cleanup plan

#Ganga #Gangarejuvenation #GangaActionPlan In his enthusiasm to leave his imprints on the sands of time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced several high profile projects – one of these was the rejuvenation of the Ganga. He has even appointed a full time Minister Uma Bharati to keep track of the progress.
It may be recalled that cleaning of the holy river Ganga had been taken up during the previous regime of Congress and UPA. It was a similar mission and was called the Ganga Action Plan. But, even though several million cusecs of water has flown down the mighty river since then, there has been no tangible progress.
As per reports, the Narendra Modi government had submitted to the court a blueprint of short, medium and long term measures that would involve thousands of crore of investment to restore the glory of the holy river. As a part of the action plan, the Centre had identified 118 towns on the bank of Ganga as the first target to achieve total sanitation including water waste treatment and solid waste management.
Moreover, it was expected that the consortium of seven IITs would address the issue relating to almost 100 km-long eco-sensitive zone ranging from Gomukh to Uttarkashi. The ultimate objective was the rejuvenation of the 2,500 km long river.
The Supreme Court has, therefore, asked for a fresh response of the government about the steps that it has taken to implement the stage-wise projects for cleaning the Ganga in the states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The SC has assigned a time frame of six weeks for submission of the progress.