HYDERABAD: When spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev’s Rally for Rivers, a nationwide campaign to spread awareness about the urgent need to preserve rivers, made a pit stop at GMC Balayogi Indoor Stadium at Gachibowli here on Thursday, governor ESL Narasimhan said he would monitor river revival programmes personally. “I will personally look into the river revival programmes in both the states,” he said to a packed stadium. He also cautioned companies to refrain from letting industrial effluents into lakes.
The rally is aimed at creating awareness in 21 cities in 12 states about making river water level increase by 50 percent through plantation of trees on the river banks and beds extending by a kilometre. The rally seeks to have a nationwide policy by garnering people’s and political support. Irrigation minister Harish Rao said the state was already implementing several policies to make the state eco-friendly. “Haritha Haram, which is the state’s biggest policy to revive the green cover, will automatically receive the rivers.
Even the lakes from the times of Kakatiyas rule are being revitalised in the city for better irrigation, he said. “The rally in itself will not create any immediate increase in water levels but it will enable political leaders who are not rulers but people’s representatives to frame policies for a scientific implementation of rejuvenating our rivers,” said Jaggi. He added that it would take at least four decades to see some change and the responsibility was on people to decide what the country can afford to do and what not.