Union Minister Shri C.R. Paatil chairs 12th Meeting of Empowered Task Force on Ganga Rejuvenation
New Delhi : The 12th meeting of the Empowered Task Force (ETF) on Ganga Rejuvenation was chaired by Minister of Jal Shakti Sh. C. R. Paatil, in the presence of MoS, Dr. Raj Bhushan Choudhary. Senior officials, including Sh. Ashok K. Meena OSD, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Sh. Rakesh Kumar Verma (AS), Sh. Rajeev Kumar Mital (DG), Executive Directors, and representatives from Ministry of Power, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change. The meeting was also attended by Sh. Anurag Srivastava, Principal Secretary State Government of Uttar Pradesh;Sh. Sunil Kumar Yadav Additional Secretary State Government of Bihar, Sh. Shailesh Bagauli Secretary, State Government of Uttarakhand Sh. Sunil Kumar, Principal Secretary State Government ofJharkhand and Ms. Nandini Ghosh Project Director SPMG West Bengal.
Director General NMCG, Sh. Rajeev Kumar Mital gave a detailed presentation on various issues and briefed the Minister about the progress made since the last meeting.
During the session, a comprehensive action plan for the rejuvenation of River Ganga was discussed. Key topics included progress under the Namami Gange program, with a special focus on the reuse of treated water, biodiversity conservation, remediation of polluted river stretches, and the implementation of the River Action Plan and natural farming. The Minister called for a unified approach among stakeholders to closely monitor and evaluate the progress of Ganga-related projects, stressing the need to preserve the sanctity of the sacred river through dedicated conservation efforts. Rural and urban sanitation efforts have a big role in river cleaning and directed to complete the targets for creation of infrastructure in a time bound manner.
Complete coverage for online monitoring should be ensured by installation of Online Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (OCEMS) in all the STPs and connecting it to Platform for Real-time Monitoring of Yamuna and Ganga (PRAYAG) in NMCG.The Minister for Jal Shakti directed state Governments to assist NMCG in completing the pollution abatement efforts as under to take river cleaning effort to next level:
Shri Paatil emphasized the spiritual connect of the river Ganga in the country and directed that tourism potential along the banks of this sacred river should be harnessed. This will develop the economy of the region and also giveboost to infrastructure.