The Indian government has signed a $1 billion loan with multilateral lending agency, the World Bank, to help support the cleaning of the Ganga river.
A National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) has been set up under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with chief ministers of the five states through which the Ganga flows, including Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, being members of the NGRBA.
Nine other expert members will be nominated to the NGRBA whose objective will be to ensure that by 2020, no untreated municipal sewage or industrial effluents will be discharged into the river.
The project has been designed keeping in mind the lessons learnt from the earlier unsuccessful Ganga action plan and the international experience of river clean-up efforts such as the Rhine and Danube.
“What has set the NGRBA apart from earlier government initiatives is that the local municipal body, the state and Central governments will have equal share in planning and managing this initiative,” minister of environment Jairam Ramesh said at a press meet.
Another agreement for credit of $ 15.6 million and $8.14 million grant was inked between the government and the World Bank is for the Biodiversity Conservation and Rural Livelihood Improvement Project (BCRLIP)
The BCRLIP will be implemented in two biodiversity rich landscapes, namely the Little Rann of Kachchh in Gujarat and the Askot lascape in Uttarakahand.
The objective is to conserve high-value biodiversity areas while simultaneously improving the livelihoods of dependent communities. This will help expand conservation action beyond protected areas.