LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court has given a critical observation over the role of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) in keeping the holy river pollution free saying that the Mission was relegated to just being a machine to distribute money for cleaning river Ganga without bothering for the purpose and the work done by it was apparently an eyewash.
While hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by one VC Srivastava over the issue, the three-judge full bench, comprising Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta, and Justice Ajit Kumar, said that the Mission was not monitoring if the money released by it for cleaning the river was being utilized for the same purpose or not.
The bench observed that no progress in the direction of keeping the river pollution-free was visible on the ground and the entire work done by the Mission was appearing to be an eyewash.
The bench, headed by the chief justice, sought to know the details of the budget NMCG had distributed while asking if the purpose of keeping Ganga clean was served even after spending crores so far.
Posting the matter for the next hearing on November 1, the High Court bench issued directives to all the departments concerned to make the copies of their respective affidavits available to Nyaymitra Arun Kumar Gupta, litigant VC Srivastava, and other parties. The court also asked the litigants to check the authenticity of claims over Ganga being free from pollution.
Earlier, while commencing the hearing, the bench took the affidavits filed by NMCG, Central Pollution Control Board, UP Pollution Control Board, Jal Nigam, Prayagraj Municipal Corporation, and other departments, on record and took up all the affidavits one by one seeking information from the respective authorities. However, the bench did not get a satisfactory response from them.
On the court's query over the involvement of any environmental engineer in such a huge project, NMCG claimed that all the officials working under the Mission were environmental engineers and no project was passed without their consent.
When the court asked if the environmental engineers of NMCG monitored the ongoing projects, the Mission officials remained silent.
In the affidavits filed by various agencies, the court found that the Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) installed in Kanpur, Prayagraj and Varanasi and other cities were not functioning as per the set standards. The bench cited the example of Kanpur saying all the drains in Kanpur were untapped while in Varanasi, two were untapped discharging polluted water directly into Ganga.
Expressing surprise over the Prayagraj Municipal Corporation's claim that Rs 44 lakh was being spent for cleaning the drains per month, the court said despite spending crores annually, the condition of the Ganga was the same in Sangam City.