Rajya Sabha
The Central Government by a Notification dated 20.02.2009, has set up the ‘National Ganga River Basin Authority’ (NGRBA) as an empowered planning, financing, monitoring and coordinating authority for the Ganga River. Its purpose is to ensure effective abatement of pollution and conservation of the river Ganga. It will adopt a holistic approach with the river basin as the unit of planning. A notification to this effect was issued on 20.02.2009 which provides for a Corpus of funds to be provided by the Central Government for implementing the projects, programmes and other activities of the NGRBA. No decision has been taken on the amount of funds to be provided for the Corpus.
Ganga Action Plan (GAP) Phase-I was launched as a centrally funded scheme in 1985 with the objective of improving the water quality of the Ganga to acceptable standards. Various pollution abatement schemes including Interception & Diversion of sewage and setting up of sewage treatment plants were taken up. GAP Phase-II which covered the tributaries of Ganga namely, Yamuna, Gomti, Damodar and Mahananda, besides Ganga, was approved in stages from 1993-1996. GAP Phase II was merged with the National River Conservation Plan (NRCP) in December, 1996. The total expenditure incurred on conservation of river Ganga under the GAP Phase – I & II so far, is Rs. 816.47 crore. Sewage treatment capacity of 1007 million liters per day (mld) has been created.
Minister of State for the Ministry of Environment and Forests (Independent charge) Shri Jairam Ramesh replied in a written question by Smt. Shobhana Bhartia and Shri Vijay Jawaharlal Darda in Rajya Sabha today.
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