Legislation for a clean Ganga has moved one step forward, with a committee of experts meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday to discuss salient aspects of the draft of the National River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) Bill, 2017. The committee, which is headed by the director general of the National Mission for Clean Ganga, U.P. Singh, went through the bill, discussing the preamble in detail.
The bill might be presented before Parliament later this year.
The bill address the two main issues of Ganga, its cleanliness (nirmalta) and uninterrupted flow (aviralta) and provides for penalties in this regard. The bill is being planned as a template for similar legislation to protect other main rivers of the country.
Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati had earlier told the media that it was necessary to have a Ganga Act as it would give teeth to the provisions that will be put in place to ensure the river's clean up. There is no such legislation in the country.
The draft of the bill was submitted to the ministry for water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation on April 12, 2017. A committee under the chair of Justice Giridhar Malviya was appointed last July to prepare the draft of the bill.
Cleaning the Ganga was one of Prime minister Narendra Modi's big election promises, and the Namami Gange mission is a flagship project of his government. The work so far has moved at a rather slow pace and the government is keen now to be able to have some visible results before the next hustings.
Among the various problems that beset the project was the fact that Ganga passes through many states that are not under the rule of the NDA alliance. With BJP rule established in Uttar Pradesh—the main region of pollution—the ministry is hopeful that the mission will get new energy.
