Cauvery part of Centre’s clean-up plan for rivers

The Ganga river cleaning programme got a major boost after the BJP came to power at the head of a coalition in 2014 under Narendra Modi, who was himself elected from Varanasi that forms an important part of the river, considered sacred from the mythological times. Even when he went to file his nomination papers from Varanasi in 2014, Modi had said he was contesting from there on the call of “Ma Ganga”.

While the ‘Namami Gange’ programme has an outlay of Rs 20,000 crore for a period of five years up to December this year, the funds allotted for cleaning all other rivers is a tiny Rs 200 crore. The significant feature of the funding for this project is that the annual outlay will not lapse and the unspent money will be carried over to the next year.

“At the moment the National River Conservation Programme (NRCP) does not have much money. It is Rs 200 crore. In the Jal Shakti Ministry, we are also in the process of preparing a Cabinet note for taking up projects for cleaning up other important rivers like the Cauvery, the Godavari, the Narmada and the Pamba,” says Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director-General of the National Mission for Clean Ganga, in the Jal Shakti Ministry.

Recently, the NRCP, which was in the Environment Ministry, has been brought under him.

Mishra told DT Next in an exclusive interview that priority for cleaning will be based on the pollution level.

The Tamil Nadu government has prepared a preliminary report on rejuvenation of the Cauvery and its tributaries under the title ‘Nadanthai Vaazhi Cauvery’ with an outlay of Rs 9,927 crore. The Tamil Nadu government’s project includes sewage management at a cost of Rs 2,165 crore that includes sewage treatment plant (sequential batch reactor technology run with solar energy on Hybrid Annuity Model)

The HAM model has been adopted in the Ganga cleaning project under which a significant portion of the capital cost of the project is required to be financed by the private developer, who will put in 60 per cent of the investment and 40 per cent by the government.

The Cauvery cleaning project will also have a Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP), textiles, at a cost of Rs 996 crore, CETP for tanneries at a cost of Rs 225 crore and Solid Waste Management scheme at a cost of Rs 121 crore.

Mishra said there would be a component for the Cauvery in the proposed fund for the cleaning of major rivers other than the Cauvery.

“I can’t say how much will be the fund right now for the NRCP but definitely it will be bigger than that allocated for the Ganga cleaning under the “National Mission for Clean Ganga”.

He said his ministry has given some feedback to the Tamil Nadu government on the Cauvery scheme. “We are helping them with ideas, Detailed Project Report and other things,” he said.

A team from Tamil Nadu will be shortly visiting Varanasi this month for looking at the Ganga development projects. This follows a recent visit by a delegation headed by the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary which met the Water Resources Secretary at the Centre and discussed the Cauvery cleaning project.

Mishra said the Centre is appreciative that the Tamil Nadu government has done “scientific and systematic” planning on cleaning the Cauvery and is sharing its experience with the state.

The ‘Namami Gange’ was launched in June 2015, with the aim of integrating previous and currently ongoing initiatives in a holistic manner with a basin approach. It was approved as a Central sector scheme and includes diverse set of interventions such as pollution abatement measures to tackle different sources of pollution such as municipal sewage, industrial effluents, municipal solid waste, non-point sources of pollution and intervention for ecological flows, biodiversity conservation and other things.

In its 2,525-km-long course, the Ganga flows mainly through five states and there are 97 towns along the Ganga main stem. A total of 150 sewerage infrastructure projects have been sanctioned at a cost of Rs23,155 crore from the major chunk of the total projects sanctioned.

Out of the total outlay of Rs 20,000 crore for the ‘‘Namami Gange’ programme for a period of five years, so far a total expenditure of Rs7,695 crore has been incurred till date, says official data.