Namami Gange Executive Committee approves 9 projects worth Rs. 1278 Crore for pollution abatement

New Delhi [India], February 22 : The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) on Wednesday held the 47th meeting of the Executive Committee of NMCG under the chairmanship of G. Asok Kumar, Director General, NMCG. Nine projects worth around Rs. 1,278 crore were approved in the meeting. Out of them, seven pertain to abatement of pollution in the Ganga Basin and two to ghat development, said a press release by the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
In the main stem of River Ganga, a project in West Bengal worth Rs. 123.02 crores was approved for the creation of a 13 MLD STP and a 300 KLD decentralized STP at Chakdaha Municipal Town.
In Uttar Pradesh, three projects were approved worth Rs 422 crore. These include a project to intercept and divert 13 drains by augmenting the sewage treatment capacity of Salori STP by 43 MLD in Prayagraj.
Construction of one 20 KLD faecal sludge co-treatment facility is also part of this project. Another project in Uttar Pradesh pertains to the rejuvenation of River Kali East by the development of an in-situ Constructed Wetland System at 8 locations in Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Hapur and Bulandshahar was approved costing Rs. 95.47 crore.
The wetland construction consists of making arrangements for horizontal and vertical filtration by developing oxidation, filtration segments as well as plantation inside the waterway at one location. The benefit of the methodology to be adopted is no change in the morphology of the river & no obstruction in the waterway during the flood.
For that development, one project worth Rs. 2.84 crores was approved for Nageshwar Dham Ashram ghat in Fatehpur.
A project for the development of two Sewage Treatment Plants (10.91 MLD and 10.66 MLD) for pollution abatement in River Ganga at an estimated cost of Rs. 94.12 crore was approved for Lakhisarai town in Bihar.
For ghat development in Bihar, one project for the development of Atal Ghat Manjhi, Saran, Bihar was also given a go-ahead at an estimated cost of Rs. 10.04 crore. Atal Ghat project includes the development of ghat area for bathing, facilities, space for Pooja and other religious activities, drinking water points, flood lights for night, place for 'shraad' pooja and 'mundan', landscaping and wet and dry dustbins for segregation of waste at the source.
Two projects were placed before the Executive Committee for Madhya Pradesh for approval, out of which a major project costing Rs. 511.15 crores was approved to abate pollution in Rivers Kahn and Saraswati in Indore. The project envisages the construction of 2 STPs of 120 MLD, 40 MLD and 35 MLD capacities. An important component of this project is the creation of a treated water reuse network with 120 MLD and 35 MLD capacity STPs.
Another proposed project in Madhya Pradesh was for the construction of a 22 MLD STP and 2.35 MLD Effluent Treatment Plant in Ujjain town at an estimated cost of Rs. 92.78 crore for pollution abatement in River Kshipra. This project, however, was referred to for further clarification.
For the monitoring of industrial pollution, a project titled 'Pollution Inventorization, Assessment and Surveillance on River Ganga Basin (PIAS) piloted by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) were approved at an estimated cost of Rs. 114.42 crore. The project envisages annual updation of inventory, annual inspection of Gross Polluting Industries (GPIs) by a Third Party, annual inspection of GPI by CPCB, monitoring of Recipient Drains of HighlyPolluting Industries and Industrial Clusters, monitoring of drains, monitoring of STPs, monitoring of CETPs, Online Continuous Emission MonitoringSystem (OCEMS) /Dashboard/IT portal.
A first-of-its-kind project titled 'Survey, Investigation for Rejuvenation and Conservation of Shahdara Drain with nature-based treatment - Soil Biotechnology (SBT) was also approved worth Rs. 1.9 crore. The project envisages drone survey, bathymetric survey, field survey/data collection and investigation of Inlet Drain Discharge, Water Quality & Testing and Soil/Sludge Properties.
Himansu Badoni, Executive Director (Projects), NMCG, S.P. Vashishtha, Executive Director (Admin.), NMCG, Bhaskar Dasgupta, Executive Director (Finance), NMCG, D.P. Mathuria, Executive Director (Technical), NMCG, Richa Misra, Joint Secretary and Financial Advisor, Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, senior officials from the states concerned also attended the meeting.