National Ganga Council meets to review Namami Gange project

Kanpur,December 14(HS) The Namami Gange  project which is being reviewed by Prime MInister Narendra Modi here  on Saturday was launched by his government  five years ago. An estimated Rs 2,958 crores had been spent on it till July 2016.

The main objective was to clean the river which passes through 100 cities including Kanpur,Prayagraj, Varanasi and Patna.

It has been polluted by tanneries, chemical units, distilleries, slaughter-houses and hospitals set up along the banks of the river.The government has already ordered for closure of  as many as 48 industrial units.

As many as eight states including UP,Bihar,Jharkhand and West Bengal have been covered by the project which has budget outlay of Rs. 20,000 crore for five years. This  marks four-fold increase over the expenditure in more than three decades.

The progress of the flagship Modi government scheme is being monitored  the National Ganga Council which was up in October 2016 under the River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) Authorities. The Council is holding its first meeting at Kanpur today.The PM arrived to preside over the meeting this morning.

It is being attended,among others, by chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath and chief minister Uttarakhand Trivendra Singh Rawat.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has not come.He has sent his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi to attend the meeting.Jharkhand chief minister Raghuwar Das has not also come.He may be busy in Assembly elections in the state which are underway.Voting will end on December 20.

After the meeting the Prime Minister and other members are scheduled to cruise on the Ganga.