Now, IITs roped in for clean-Ganga plan (Indian Express- 10 June 2010)

Kautilya Singh

Kanpur : After two Ganga Action Plans failed to deliver the goods, seven major IITs of the country have joined hands to find ways to clean up the national river.

After perusing a report submitted by the seven IITs, namely IIT Kanpur, Mumbai, Guwahati, Delhi, Kharagpur, Chennai and Roorkee, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has asked them to prepare a work plan for National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) in the next 18 months.

IIT-K Director Sanjay Govind Dhande has been appointed co-ordinator between the ministry and IITs, while Vinod Tare, professor in the Civil Engineering Department of IIT-K has been named convenor for the project.

Dhande told The Indian Express: “GAP was launched in 1985, but the project failed to bring down the pollution level of the national river, therefore the Union Environment and Forests ministry decided to give an opportunity to IITs to prepare a work plan for NGRBA.”

Union Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh had met with representatives of the seven IITs at IIT-Mumbai on March 13, 2010. During the meeting, he asked the IITs to prepare a detailed work plan for NGRBA, following which the IITs prepared an initial project report. The Ministry approved the report on June 7 and asked the seven IITs to submit a detailed project report on the work plan for NGRBA in the next 18 months.

Explaining the difference between GAP and NGRBA, Dhande said: “While the former concentrated on treatment of water at sites of extreme pollution, the latter aims to take care of river pollution as well as the development of the river surroundings.”

The IIT-K Director said the report would include short-term and long-term plans for perpetual development of the Ganga River Basin. “Our work plan would include development of a green cover on both sides of the river, ensuring a proper flow rate and depth of the river and methods to keep the river free from pollution,” he said. The work plan would aim at bringing down the pollution level considerably in the next 10 years.

After declaring the Ganga a national river, formation of NGRBA was the first major initiative of the Union Government for cleaning the river basin. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh heads NGRBA which includes the Chief Ministers of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Dhande clarified that the IITs were not the implementing agency for the project. “We will prepare the work policy for NGRBA, and it will be executed by different government and private organisations,” he said.