Question

what steps are taken by Indian government to play in holy river Ganga

Answer 1

the river Ganga has been the lifeline for millions of people living along the adjoining stretches, starting from Gangotri (its origin), through Uttarakhand to West Bengal before becoming one with the Bay of Bengal. Throughout this entire journey of 1553 miles or 2500 kilometers (making its way through around 120 cities), millions of people regularly dump industrial wastes, untreated chemicals, animal carcasses (sometimes humans included), sewerage, and what not in this ‘holy river’ of India. The World Health Organization or WHO has regarded this ‘holy’ river as an ‘environmental hazard’ where 1.7 billion litres of untreated effluents are dumped every day.

Though Ganga Action Plan was first mooted by late PM Rajiv Gandhi way back in 1985, almost nothing has been done till date other than lip service for cleaning up one of the most important rivers of India. It is now the turn of Narendra Modi to take up the issue of cleaning up the Ganges. At least, that’s what it seems from the new PM’s statements.

- See more at: http://www.elections.in/blog/what-is-being-done-to-clean-the-ganga/#sthash.x0oyJ7oT.dpuf

Answer 2

Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to Varanasi and showed a hope to clean the holy River Ganga during his election campaign. Cleaning of Ganga has also been mentioned in the manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the cultural heritage sections. They made certain changes in the administration to perform the task. The Ganga Action Plan which was part of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has now been shifted under Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti.The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) – Way back in 1986, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi launched Rs 462-crore project to clean the Ganga in Varanasi. Under this plan sewage treatment plants were set up, raw sewage was cut off and diverted, electric and wood crematoria was set up and low-cost sanitation facilities were provided. The Ganga Action Plan was not successful so refuted on 31 March 2000 but phase II of the programe got approval. Till Feb 2014 Rs 939 crore had been spent on the Ganga Action Plan including 524 different schemes.