New Delhi: A day after Cabinet approved Rs 20,000 crore for the flagship 'Namami Gange' programme, Union Water Resource Minister Uma Bharti on Thursday said around Rs 7000 crore will be spent on payment of dues of previous clean Ganga projects, which have escalated due to time and cost overruns.
"Only Rs 4000 crore was spent in past 29 years for cleaning of Ganga. Now, we will have to pay the liabilities (of previous projects) due to cost escalation which will be around Rs 7000 to Rs 8000 crore," Bharti told reporters after the 4th meeting of Inter-linking of rivers.
She said options would be explored for making the old policies more effective to yield better results, and NGOs and other organisations would be engaged for Ganga rejuvenation.
Expressing confidence that the government will be able to complete first phase of cleaning of the holy river by October next year, Bharti noted that the Ganga rejuvenation programme is a central sponsored scheme which does not required any financial assistance from states.
"The main reason why Central schemes get delayed is that they get stuck in obtaining approvals from state governments. Cleaning of Ganga is a 100 per cent centrally sponsored project and we do not have to seek any (financial) clearances from the states," she said.
Bharti said that the ministry has decided to engage four battalions of Territorial Army and deploy alongside the banks of Ganga for constant monitoring of littering and disposal of waste into the river under the project.
"With four battalions of Territorial Army, we will have around 3,000 personnel who will be working on the banks of Ganga to ensure that no pollution is created. They will also monitor the implementation of our schemes," said the Minister.
Bharti said that the cleaning of Ganga and Yamuna was a joint project and would be successful only if viewed in totality.
"Learning from our past mistakes, we have realised that the problems and challenges in cleaning the two rivers along with some adjoining rivers will have to be taken up jointly," she said.
Noting that Ganga was being polluted most by the industries which discharge their effluent directly into the river, Bharti said, they would be made to ensure that only treated water was released into the river.
The Ministry had issued notices to 764 industries, and asked them to check release of effluents into River Ganga and submit a detailed action taken report on controlling and preventing pollution within 15 days.
Bharti also insisted that clean water should be used for limited purposes only and treated water for other larger purposes.
"Only used or treated water should be used largely so that fresh water is kept for limited purposes," she said.
