Modi virtually chairs National Ganga Council meeting in Kolkata

GANDHINAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday chaired the second meeting of the National Ganga Council (NGC) meeting in Kolkata via video conferencing.

The meeting was attended by the Union Minister for Jal Shakti, and other Union Ministers who are members of the council besides the Chief Ministers of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Instead of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav was present at the meeting.

The Prime Minister attended the meeting virtually after he performed the last rites of his mother Heeraben who passed away early this morning.

PM Modi also virtually inaugurated multiple projects of the Indian Railways.

The National Ganga Council has been given the overall responsibility for the superintendence of pollution prevention and rejuvenation of River Ganga and its tributaries.

Namami Gange Programme is an Integrated Conservation Mission, approved as a 'Flagship Programme' by the Central Government in June 2014 with a budget outlay of Rs 20,000 crore to accomplish the twin objectives of effective abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of the national river Ganga.

At the 46th meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), projects worth about Rs 2,700 for the development of sewerage infrastructure in the Ganga basin were approved.

Out of the approved projects, 12 pertain to the development of sewerage infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal worth more than Rs 2,700 crore, a Ministry of Jal Shakti release said.

Recently, the Namami Gange initiative has been recognised by the United Nations (UN) as one of the Top 10 World Restoration Flagships programmes aimed at reviving the natural world.

The award was received by G. Asok Kumar, the Director General of the Namami Gange project during a function at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in Montreal, Canada on World Restoration Day.