One of the major promises made by the BJP before coming to power in 2014 was to rid the Ganga of widespread pollution and to start a mission aimed at cleaning it in an efficacious manner. This finally rejuvenated the process of purifying India’s lifeline. It had been kept in abeyance for several years before it again came up in the run up to 2014 elections.
After the Modi government came to power, Rs. 2000 crores were sanctioned for the project to clean river Ganga. However, Prime Minister Modi’s critics have been frequently criticizing him over not doing enough as far as the mission to clean the holy river is concerned. It is often argued that the Modi governenmt is taking too long to clean the Ganga. But the myth that the government has been too slow to move ahead on the issue of cleaning Ganga river has been debunked by Dr. Jasper Wieck, Germany’s envoy to India. He is currently Chargé d’Affaires of the German Embassy in India. He stated that it took Germany 30 years and 45 billion euros to clean the Rhine river. Length of Ganga is double its length which gives an essence of the problems that India is facing in cleaning the holy river.
It has been reported that Germany is going to give India soft loan worth around Rs. 990 crores for cleaning India’s lifeline, the Ganga River. This is going to be applied towards strengthening the sewage treatment structure in the state of Uttarakhand. Wieck said, “The purpose of the project is to reduce the inflow of untreated waste water in River Ganga and, thus, to improve the water quality of the river.” Elaborating about the details of this project, Wieck stated that several sewage treatment plants having capacity of 1.5 crore liters would be constructed. It will also include construction of 13 sewage pumping stations. The idea is to improve the wholesomeness of Ganga water by ensuring that untreated sewage is not released in the holy river. It is clear that despite all the propaganda against Modi government that progress on cleaning the Ganga is slow and cumbersome. The German government understands that India is steadily moving in the right direction and has therefore made such a huge investment by giving soft loans in a project towards cleaning Ganga. This shows that the criticism of the mission to clean the Ganga is political, concocted and misleading.
If one were to make an objective analysis of the efforts made by Modi government to restore the glory of the Ganga river, one would immediately come to the conclusion that India has in fact been moving at a brisk pace in the direction of cleaning the Ganga. Cleaning the holy river has been a topmost priority for the Modi government and looking at the results, it seems that its efforts are paying off. Recently, Nitin Gadkari who has been given the additional charge of the water resources announced that 80% of river Ganga will be clean by March 2019. If we were to compare India’s progress with that of river Thing in Germany, one would immediately come to the conclusion that Ganga is being cleaned on a very brisk pace. Yesterday, he also assured that most of the 221 projects under the Namami Gange Mission were at advance stages of completion and that the holy river will be totally clean by March 2020. Thus, critics of the Namami Gange Mission stand exposed as it has become clear that the holy river is being cleaned at a decent pace. Moreover, even though it is double in length when compared to the Rhine river of Germany, the government is moving ahead in its ambitious project at a very impressive pace.