NGT calls meeting of stakeholders on Ganga

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal has convened a meeting of all stakeholders involved in cleaning of River Ganga from Haridwar to Kanpur to deliberate on the mechanism to make the river pollution-free.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said the meeting would take place on May 20 at 1:00 PM in the conference hall of NGT.

"We are of the considered opinion that before the arguments are heard, it will be necessary for the Tribunal to have a final meeting with all the stakeholders who are involved in Segment-II of Phase-I (Haridwar to Kanpur) of the Ganga Cleaning Project in terms of the judgement of the Tribunal," the bench said.

It directed UP Chief Secretary, other secretaries concerned of UP, Managing Director of UP Jal Nigam, CEO of UP Jal Sansthan and other senior most officers of public authorities directly or indirectly concerned with the Ganga cleaning to be present in the meeting.

"Chairman and Member Secretary, of UP Pollution Control Board, Member Secretary of Central Pollution Control Board, Joint Secretary concerned of MoEF, Joint Secretaries concerned of the Ministry of Water Resources, Chairman & Expert Members of the Principal Committee constituted under orders of NGT and representative of tanneries, sugar, paper, distillery and textile association would also be present," the bench added.

The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river into different segments -- Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal.

On December 11, last year, the tribunal had imposed a complete ban on use of plastic of any kind from Gomukh to Haridwar along the river from February 1 and decided to slap a penalty of Rs 5,000 per day on erring hotels, dharamsalas and ashrams spewing waste into the river.