Business leaders offer Rs 500 crore for ‘Clean Ganga’

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Bhubaneswar, December 7, 2017: Captains of Indian trade and industry
have committed a support of nearly Rs 500 crore for the development of
amenities like ghats, river fronts, crematoria and parks at various places
along River Ganga as part of the Namami Gange Mission.
Many business leader after holding an interaction with Union Water
Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Minister Nitin Gadkari in
Mumbai offered their commitment to support the Union Government’s Clean Ganga .
The interaction was organized by the National Mission for Clean Ganga.
Speaking on the occasion Gadkari emphasised that cleaning the Ganga
should become a peoples movement .He informed that a lot of private individuals
from across the world have pledged support for cleaning Ganga and have donated
generously. He also said that strict laws will be brought in to check pollution
of the river.
The support from the business community in Mumbai follows closely after
similar success in London last week where Indian corporates committed
overwhelming support for Namami Gange Mission after an interaction with Shri
Gadkari at a road show organized by NMCG.
Private funding is being sought for projects worth over Rs 2500 crore
for development of ghats, crematoria, water bodies, parks, sanitation
facilities, public amenities and river front. An indicative list of these
projects has been published as a booklet and is also available on the National
Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) website as an e-booklet. The Government is
appealing to the business community to participate in the Namami Gange Mission
to clean the river by funding projects of their choice.
Union Water Resources Secretary UP Singh said that the vision of Ganga
rejuvenation constitutes restoring the wholesomeness of the river in terms of
ensuring continuous and unpolluted flow and geological and ecological
integrity.
He informed that 113 ghats and 52 crematoria are under various stages of
progress at a cost of Rs 626.57 crore while 84 ghats in Varanasi will be
cleaned up at a cost of Rs 5 crore per year. All villages near Ganga have been
declared Open Defecation free. Trash skimmers have been deployed in 11 cities
to collect all kinds of floating waste materials to clean the Ganga river
surface.

The Government of India, through Namami Gange Programme announced in
2014, has given a much needed thrust to restoring the wholesomeness of the
river by allocating resources of about Rs20,000 crore and has adopted an
integrated Ganga Rejuvenation approach addressing various aspects. 

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