Individuals, private institutions get role in Mission Ganga

NEW DELHI: To fast-track all projects relating to Ganga cleaning, the ministry of water resources is letting people, independent organisations take up cleaning stretches of Ganga by applying to the National Mission for Clean Ganga directly.

The tendering process is too being simplified to avoid bureaucratic delays and a committee of officials has been put in place to approve the projects and monitor their implementation, an official at the Centre said.

Top officials said this move has been taken to ensure the delivery happens in the fixed course of six to eight months. By way of this, the National Mission for Clean Ganga has approved eight projects worth Rs 700 crore, out of which four pertain to sewage management in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, three are related to treatment of drains through bio-remediation and one of inventorisation and surveillance of river Ganga.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for setting up four STPs of 140 MLD of capacity in Patna on October 14. The total cost of these four projects would be Rs 738.14 crore.

Union minister Nitin Gadkari had said the tender process of all these projects would be completed by December and work orders would be issued by March next year.

Officials said three projects of treatment of drains using bio-remediation technology have also been given a green signal at an estimated cost of Rs 4.29 crore. Sewage treatment plants (STPs) at Haridwar and Varanasi in the public-private partnership mode for a combined cost of Rs 324.69 crore have been approved too.

Gadkari had recently said there will be a lot of improvement in water quality of the Ganga by March 2019 and that efforts will be made to float tenders for all the works relating to Namami Gange by December-end this year and issue work orders by March next year. He had also said that the government will ensure transparent and corruption-free implementation of the project.