Budget 2014: Rs 2,037 cr more for Ganga; will this too flow down the river?

Cleaning up of the Ganga has been on top of the Narendra Modi government’s agenda. Modi has laid special emphasis on cleaning the 2,525-km river, and in fact set up a separate ministry for the Ganga under Uma Bharti.

In keeping with this promise, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his first budget has announced an integrated Ganga development project called the ‘Namami Gange’ and allocated a fund of Rs 2,037 crore for it.

With focus on river linking, Jaitley allocated Rs 100 crore to fund the study. He further set aside a sum of Rs 100 crore for Ghat development and beautification of river front at Kedarnath, Haridwar, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Patna and Delhi.

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Ganga is no stranger to government promises. Despite the previous governments spending thousands of crores of rupees, it still remains dirty. An earlier DNA report notes, that the first official government effort for Ganga conservation was started by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, whose government launched the Ganga Action Plan (GAP).

In the last three decades, various governments have spent nearly Rs 40,000 crore to clean the river. The result? Zilch.

In his budget speech today, Jaitley said, “Substantial amount of money has been spent in the conservation and improvement of the Ganga, which has a very special sacred place in the collective consciousness of this country. However, the efforts have not yielded desired results because of the lack of concerted effort by all the stakeholders.”

Jaitley also proposed to set up an NRI fund to boost the Ganga’s clean up.

However, environmental scientists may not be too happy about Jaitley’s plans for the river. Earlier, scientists associated with the Ganga Rejuvenation Programme had claimed that the Union Government’s proposal to build barrages, dams and enable navigation of small ships on the river is going to affect aquatic life and create more pollution.

Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, Professor of Electronics at IIT-BHU and head priest of famous Sankat Mochan Temple in Varanasi, told PTI that the government is ignoring its pledge to ensure continuous and uninterrupted flow of the river and their proposal will commercially exploit the river Ganga.

Mishra had pointed out that the problems associated with Ganga were raised since 1986 after the introduction of Rajiv Gandhi’s pet project Ganga Action Plan, in which thousand crores of rupees were spent by the then government.

“The present Modi-led NDA government is going to do the same thing. Constructing dams, or barrages will affect the health of the Ganga, so why is the NDA government doing the same thing? Why are they repeating the same mistakes that have been committed by the successive previous regimes?” he asked.

Mishra suggested that the government should install Sewage treatment plants (STPs), fully upgraded and equipped with latest scientific technology, to ensure not a single drop of sewage flows into the river.

Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, disciple of Sankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati and Mahant of Vidya Math, had alleged “the Modi government is making the river a materialistic thing to generate revenue which is against its glory.”

Moreover, is the Ganga the only polluted river in India? Definitely not. There are many more that are as, or even more, polluted. If this undue focus on the Ganga is part of a cultural nostalgia, it cannot be taken as keenness to conserve the natural resources.