Namami Gange: The government has so far sanctioned 305 projects for cleaning up Ganga at a cost of Rs 28,613.75 crore of which 109 projects are already operational, the Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday. The rest 196 projects are in different stages of implementation, Rattan Lal Kataria, minister of state for Jal Shakti, informed the lower house of Parliament on Thursday.
The Namami Gange Programme undertakes activities to reduce pollution from sewage, industrial effluents and solid waste. It also undertakes river front management, rural sanitation, afforestation, biodiversity conservation and public participation in the cleaning up activities. The Union government supports the state governments in their efforts financially and technically. The government has identified 97 urban centres along the river that discharge 2,953 million litres of effluents per day into the river. Projects have been kicked off to install 3,308 MLD sewage treatment capacity.
Nearly 1,34,106 hectare forest will be planted in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal by the end of next year. An area of 30,761 hectares has been brought under plantation since the launch of Namami Gange Programme in 2016.