Ganga Action Plan

The Central Government has approved a project in April 2011, under the National Ganga River Basin Authority for abatement of pollution of river Ganga with World Bank assistance at an estimated cost of Rs.7000 crore. The World Bank will provide financial assistance of US $ 1 billion. The principal objective of the project is to fund creation of pollution abatement infrastructure for conservation and restoration of water quality of the river.

The Central Government has been implementing Ganga Action Plan (GAP) since 1985. The pollution abatement works taken up under the Plan include interception and diversion of raw sewage, setting up of sewage treatment plants, creation of low cost sanitation facilities etc. An expenditure of Rs. 896.05 crore has been incurred so far under this Plan and sewage treatment capacity of 1064 mld (million litres per day) has been created.

Water quality monitoring of Ganga by independent institutions shows improvement in river water quality over pre-GAP period in terms of indicators such as Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Dissolved Oxygen (DO) at many major locations. However, in some locations like Kannauj, Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi, water quality in terms of biological oxygen demand (BOD) is not conforming to the bathing quality standards prescribed by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Under GAP, 35 schemes for pollution abatement of river Ganga in Kanpur have been sanctioned at a cost of Rs.145.43 crore, out of which 30 schemes have been completed and a treatment capacity of 171 mld has been created.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Environment and Forests (independent charge) Shrimati Jayanthi Natarajan in a written reply to a question by Shri Mahendra Mohan in Rajya Sabha.