‘Clean Ganga’ campaign to focus on conservation, tourism and livelihood 

If you are an Indian, you might have grown up seeing the river Ganga and realising that it’s more than just an important river. Indians consider it holy. Ironically, that hasn’t stopped them from exploiting it.  

Taking this into account, in 2014, the Union Government had launched the National Mission for Clean Ganga. As part of this marquee government programme, more than INR 30,000 crores had been sanctioned for 408 projects focussing on keeping the Ganga clean, facilitating river rejuvenation measures, and constructing and improving sewers among others. So far, 228 such projects have been accomplished and 132 are work in progress and the rest are in phases of tendering.  

Now, one of the flagship projects named ‘Namami Gange’ that aims to reduce pollution in River Ganga has widened its objectives. Recently, the stakeholders have decided to shift the emphasis on conservation (improving sanitation levels), tourism and offering economic and viable livelihoods. Designed as an Integrated Conservation Mission developed and foreseen by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India, it has worked since 2014 with a budget of INR 20000 crore to enhance the levels of cleanliness in Ganga across the country.  

In fact, to implement current measures, the Union Government wishes to join hands with the state counterparts, such as the State Programme Management Groups. As for the implementation, they have been categorised into three parts: entry level activities (aimed at immediate and visible impact), medium term activities (to be activated within the next five years) and long-term activities (to be activated in the next decade).  

Therefore, one can say that now the mandate is to successfully carry out the twin objectives, the original and effective abatement of pollution and the newly established objectives focused on the three: conservation, tourism, and livelihood. While the conservation will be the sole job of the Namami Gange project, the tourism part will be implemented with the help of the Union Ministry of Tourism who have been already asked to develop a comprehensive plan to set up tourism circuits along the Ganga that will be in sync with the “Arth Ganga” cultural activities. For those clueless, Arth Ganga refers to harnessing economic potential from the Ganga, a campaign that was launched my Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2019 and has its own Ganga taskforce. Alongside tourism circuits, exhibitions and fairs in 75 Ganga towns have been issued, while the Agriculture Ministry also aims to build organic farming and natural farming corridors along the Ganga sites. Similarly, the Urban Affairs Ministry aims to map drains and manage solid wastes while the Environment Ministry strives to scale up afforestation and protect the endangered Gangetic River dolphin. The goal of Power Ministry is to reuse wastewater and the Rural Development Ministry aims to rejuvenate the tributaries and distributaries of Ganga and in turn secure traditional water bodies.