Centre, World Bank to ink pact for Ganga cleaning plan

The Centre would sign an agreement with the World Bank for about $3 billion for projects to cleanse the Ganga river as envisaged under the recently constituted National Ganga River Basin Authority.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and World Bank President Robert B Zoellick will sign an agreement tomorrow for availing Project Preparation Facility (PPF) assistance of $2.96 billion to be provided by the premier monetary institution.

PPF would be utilised for preparation of detailed project report for cleaning the river, a senior environment official said.

The government has constituted NGRBA, under the Environment (Protection) Act as an empowered Authority to adopt a new holistic river basin approach to the cleaning of the river Ganga and address the issue of minimum ecological flows, besides pollution abatement works.

The decision to avail loan from World Bank for cleansing the heavily polluted Ganga river which feeds several million people in the country was taken at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in October.

The meeting also decided that the on-going sewage treatment projects would be put on fast track and States will formulate projects for critical pollution hotspots and major towns near river Ganga and its tributaries by November 30, 2009.

By 2020 mission the objective is that no untreated municipal sewage and no untreated industrial effluents will be allowed to flow into river Ganga without full treatment, the official added.