NEW DELHI: After spending seven years and over Rs 20,000 crore for the Centre’s flagship Namami Gange project for cleaning of the river and its tributaries, India is looking towards the European and US river rejuvenation model for future policy planning and river management in the Ganga basin.
After a recent meeting, the National Mission for Clean Ganga’s (NMCG) Executive Committee, recommended a proposal by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) on the relevance of the European experiences for Namami Gange Programme (NGP).
The second project calls for developing new and innovative methods of mapping environmental changes along nallas throughout the Ganga Basin by Professor Anthony Acciavatti, Yale University, United States.
This comes when the NMCG has repeatedly said that the foreign river cleaning experiences are not suitable for the Ganga programme.
That’s because rivers in India are mainly rain-fed and the flow of water keeps changing throughout the year. Plus, lakhs of people are dependent on the rivers for survival.
On the CPR proposal, it was briefed to the NMCG’s Executive Committee that the review of the literature about rejuvenation of European transboundary river rejuvenation be used to build an India-relevant critical narrative for learning from and to promote future research to inform policy thinking about Namami Gange Programme and rejuvenating India’s rivers.
Recommending the project, the EC observed that the importance of the project can be further examined in respect of its scope and objectives and its financial outlays as well.
The EC also considered 21st Century Civic Infrastructure for the Ganga Basin by Prof Acciavatti of Yale University to develop innovative methods of mapping environmental change along nallas throughout the Ganga River Basin.
“To categorise different kinds of nallas based on environmental matrix like land use, soil composition, and particle analysis. To identify five prototypical nallas within the Ganga River Basin as sites for pilot projects,” said the minutes of the meeting. The EC endorsed the proposal and said it can be further examined.