NGT seeks details of Rs 20,000 crore expenditure on cleaning Ganga

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday directed the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) to provide within 10 days the details of the budgetary expenditure of Rs 20,000 crore for cleaning and protecting the Ganga river.

"The NMCG should clear its stand on Rs 20,000 crore granted to it and how much it has dispensed to various authorities to clean the Ganga," said a bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar.

The NMCG is the implementing authority of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) that has been assigned the task to rejuvenate the river.

The next hearing has been fixed for August 18.

The Union government, under its 'Namami Ganga' programme, had earmarked Rs 20,000 crore to the NMCG, the highest allocation for the cleaning of the Ganga so far.

The NGT also sought clarity from Uttar Pradesh's polluting industries involved in leather tanning, paper, textiles and slaughterhouses about the steps taken to curb water pollution.

The green court sought details on what these industries are doing for setting up an online monitoring system to check pollution of the Ganga.

The tribunal also issued notices to the Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal governments, seeking their response to curbing river pollution in their respective jurisdictions.

The court asked them to submit their action plans in this regard.

The tribunal ordered the concerned authorities to file suggestions regarding cleanliness of the Ganga from Haridwar to Kanpur, which is part of the first phase of the Namami Ganga programme.

After the Supreme Court assigned the case to the NGT, the latter divided the work of cleaning the river into different segments -- stretching from Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to Uttar Pradesh border, Uttar Pradesh border to Jharkhand border and Jharkhand border to the Bay of Bengal.

--IANS

kd/tsb/bg