Enquiry into failure of plan to clean Ganga

New Delhi, May 19: The Rajya Sabha today witnessed a state of agitation over the issue of pollution in the Ganga, with members cutting across party lines drowning all ''highly unsatisfactory'' explanations given by the Government on the cleaning of the country's most sacred waters.

Some of the members demanded an inquiry into the failure of the the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) launched over 20 years ago and fixing of responsibility for it.

Crores of rupees that have gone down the drains since these plans were launched worried the Elders who, cutting across party lines, refused to buy the Government contention that pollution in the river had come down, provoking the Chair to direct the Minister of State for Environment and Forest Namo Narain Meena to prepare a note on the subject for the Members.

The Minister's reference to a Harvard study comparing favourably the Ganga Action Plan with similar projects taken up in Thames and Rhine rivers failed to impress them.

Mr Meena's all attempts to give an answer to different supplementaries on the question left the members further dissatisfied. They said the Minister was not touching the main issue.

The issue found veterans like Dr Karan Singh of the Congress-I, Ms Sushma Swaraj of the BJP and Ms Brinda Karat of the CPI(M) standing on their feet to express their concern.

Dr Karan Singh quoted some lines from Shankaracharya to underline the importance of the Ganga for the country.

Mr Chandan Mitra (Nominated) wanted to know what happened to the memo given to the Prime Minister by a delegation which recently visited Varansi for an on-the-spot study of the state of pollution in the river.

''The waters of the river are highly polluted in Varanasi, unfit for bathing and belie all the claims of the government,'' he said.

Mr P J Kurien of the Congress wanted the government to set up an inquiry to probe the reason for the inability of the GAP, which had consumed crores of rupees to clean the Ganga, and action against those responsible for it.

Earlier, Mr Meena in his reply said the National River Conservation was an ongoing process and the scope and the reach of the scheme were enhanced continually with the addition of more river stretches within identified pollution loads. He said the programme was launched as the Ganga Action Plan(GAP) Phase-I in 1985, and was broadbased in 1993 with the inclusion of works of major tributaries of Ganga--Yamuna, Gomti and Mahananda under the GAP Phase-II. Others rivers were included in the plan in 1995 and it was renamed as the National River Conservation Programme.

The Plan presently includes works in 34 rivers spread over 160 towns across 20 states of the country. So far, a grant of Rs 2406.28 crore has been released to all the implementing agencies against which Rs 2500.39 crore was reported to have been spent by state governments, he said.

Under the Plan, a total of 829 schemes out of 1,193 sanctioned ones had been completed and 2,598 million litres per day(MLD) sewage treatment capacity created, the Minister said.

While accepting that desired results had not been obtained under the Phase II of the Plan, he said the situation would have been worse had the Phase I not been implemented.

Replying to a supplementary, he said the Government had also approved a Rs 18 crore plan for cleaning the Pamba river along which the Sabarimala temple is situated. The Japan Bank of Cooperation has been approached for funding, he said.

About pollution in the Yamuna in Delhi, he said there was a gap of 940 MLd in the sewage treatment capacity, which the government was trying to fill.

UNI