Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the flagshipNamami Gange Program. The program integrates the efforts to clean and protect the River Ganga in a comprehensive manner by involving differed States and grassroots level institutions.
It has a budgetary outlay of 20000 crore rupees for 2015-20. It will be implemented National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) with the help of State Program Management Groups (SPMGs).
In order to improve implementation of the program, a three-tier mechanism has been proposed for project monitoring. It will comprise of
• At national level: High level task force chaired by Cabinet Secretary and assisted by NMCG.
• At national level: State level committee chaired by Chief Secretary and assisted by SPMG.
• At District level: District level committee chaired by the District Magistrate.
Focus area of Program
• Pollution abatement interventions by interception, diversion and treatment of wastewater flowing through the open drains through bio-remediation.
• Use of innovative technologies for sewage treatment plants (STPs) and effluent treatment plant (ETPs).
• Rehabilitation and augmentation of existing STPs and immediate short term measures for arresting pollution at exit points on river front to prevent inflow of sewage etc.
Funding:
Union government will provide 100% funding for various projects under this program. For this Union Government will adopt Public Private Partnership (PPP) and Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) approach for pollution hotspots.
Enforcement:
In an attempt to bolster enforcement of this program and to check pollution and protect the river, Union government will establish a Territorial Army unit named 4-battalion Ganga Eco-Task Force.
