Namami Gange Mission: Ensuring the purity of the sacred waters for Viksit Bharat.

The Ganges:

Ganges River (or Ganga) flows from the Himalayas all the way to the Bay of Bengal. Its river basin is more than 1 million sq km, and home to over 650 million people. The River Ganges contributes in the western Himalayas and flows down across northern India into Bangladesh, where it joins into the Bay of Bengal. Nearly 80% of the Ganges river basin is in India, the rest is in other countries like Nepal, China and Bangladesh. The river in India is more than 2,500km long and has the most populated river basin in the world. A huge range of wildlife and humanitarian society rely on the river.

The ganga river holds immense cultural, economic and environmental significance in India. It is a symbol of faith , sanity and hope and a source of livelihood . It is personified as Goddess Ganga. Hindu belief holds that bathing in the river on certain occasions causes the forgiveness of transgressions and helps attain salvation.

But over the years , deposition of unnecessary waste material has degraded the quality of our scared mother . Like human sewage and animal waste, unregulated development along its banks, increasing population density, and the disposal of industrial waste into the river is leading to increase in toxins and degradation of aquatic life . Therefore the Namami Mission was introduced in order to protect the Ganga from these activities.

The Mission :

The Namami Gange Programme is an Integrated Conservation Mission approved by the Union Government of India in June 2014, with the aim of cleaning and rejuvenating the Ganga River with a budget outlay of 20,000 crore. Basically it was created to accomplish the twin objectives of effective abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of National River Ganga .The iconic Indian superhero – Chacha Chaudhary has been declared as the mascot of the Namami Gange Programme.

Addressing the Indian community at Madison Square Garden in New York in 2014, the Prime Minister had said, “If we are able to clean it, it will be a huge help for the 40 per cent population of the country. So, cleaning the Ganges is also an economic agenda.”

To translate this vision the government launched and integrated conservation mission called Namami Gange to stop the pollution of Ganga river and revive the aquatic life . The union government approved the action plan proposed by the centre under a central sector scheme for spending rupees 20000 crores till 2019 to 20-20 for cleaning the river. Notable achievements of the mission include the construction and upgrade of numerous sewage treatment plants, the establishment of pollution monitoring systems, the rejuvenation of ghats and riverfront areas, and the launch of innovative initiatives such as the Ganga Task Force and Ganga Vriksharopan Abhiyan.

Main pillars of the program are :
● Sewerage Treatment Infrastructure
● River-Surface Cleaning
● Afforestation
● Industrial Effluent Monitoring
● River-Front Development
● Bio-Diversity
● Public Awareness
● Ganga Gram

It’s implementation has been divided into:

● Entry level activities: for immediate visible impact.
Activities include like rivers surface cleaning, rural sanitation to arrest the pollution through rural sewage , renovation modernization, repairing, construction of ghats to improve human river connect etc .

● Mid-term activities : to be implemented within 5 years of time frame
Activities will focus on arresting the municipal and industrial pollution entering into the river maintaining pollution through municipal sewage and maintaining sustainability in the long term.

● Long term activities: to be implemented within 10 years
Activities include increased water use efficiency and improved efficiency for surface irrigation.

Apart from these other activities has also been taken into account under the program like biodiversity conservation, afforestation and maintaining water quality. Programs for conservation of species like golden mahaseer, dolphins , turtles etc have also been taken into account. Under Namami gange 30, 000 hectare of land has been afforested to increase the acquifers , reduce adoration and improve equity life under the water. 113 real time water quality monitoring stations have been installed in order to maintain the water quality levels. The government did had to face hardships for cleaning the river Ganga but they were supported by economic and cultural pillars. There are many ways in which we can contribute to the cause for cleaning our river Ganga:

● Contributing in the funds : the government has already increased the budget for cleaning the river and programs has been installed to provide a platform for all of us to contribute into the funds to clean the river.

● Reduce, reuse and recovery: we don’t realize the water that we use ends up in the rivers and is not disposed properly therefore sewage infrastructure has been installed by the government for the citizens to reduce the usage of water and minimize the generation of waste therefore reusing the water can also add up in saving our resources.

Futuristic outlook :

While considering that an efficient amount of progress has been made, the journey to revive Ganges is still a long way to go. By harnessing technology, fostering partnerships and promoting eco-friendly practices we can create a way for a cleaner, healthier and more vibrant Ganga for our future generations and create a sustainable environment to cherish.