Centre to clean Ganga stretch in Varanasi, spruce up ghats

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 22

The Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Ministry has gone full tilt to clean the Ganga stretch in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of PM Narendra Modi, and spruce up ghats in the city, inviting frowns in political circles in the process.

This, at a time when UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has upped the ante in favour of religioius-mythical symbols associated with Lord Ram this Diwali in the temple city of Ayodhya, about 200 km from Varanasi.

In a move that apparently lacks a natural flow, the ministry has issued a communiqué, saying: “All who have been enjoying ghats at Varanasi will soon also bask in the pollution-free waters of the Ganges flowing by the spiritual city.”

“Under Namami Gange programme, an all-encompassing approach has been employed to arrest pollution flowing into the river and ensure clean ghats. From sewage treatment plants to ghats’ improvement to river surface cleaning, several steps in a time-bound manner are being taken in Varanasi by the National Mission for Clean Ganga to rid the city of river pollution,” it said.

In popular perception, the timing of the ministry’s “singular focus” on Varanasi just does not add up. Also, the issue is “not substantive, but merely procedural” under the Clean Ganga Mission.

Varanasi is one of the six cities namely Allahabad, Mathura-Vrindavan, Kanpur (UP) and Patna (Bihar) identified for implementation of “River Surface and Ghat Cleaning” project under Namami Ganga Programme in 2016.

All along, the Opposition spectrum has been of the view that the BJP-led government at the Centre has projected Clean Ganga to accomplish personal goal: masquerade party’s traditional Hindutva tones under the veneer of Modi’s development plank, especially his Swachta campaign.

The timing of the ministry’s focus on Varanasi vis-à-vis Ganga is in the context of Yogi Adityanath raising religious pitch on Diwali and Lord Ram in Ayodhya.

Yogi is already being billed in wide-ranging circles of the RSS-BJP as a leader to be watched for post-Modi. His upfront and aggressive espousal of Lord Ram during Diwali is bound to further enhance his clout in the saffron camp.

There are many who wonder if the ministry’s focus on Varanasi vide the religious symbol of Ganga is to provide a multiplier force to Yogi’s agenda or to stymie it.

Water in Punjab, HP reservoirs goes up

• Storage in reservoirs monitored by the Central Water Commission (CWC) in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand has registered an upswing for the week ending October 18
• The latest study of the commission, an agency of the Water Resources Ministry, says status in these states has gone up in comparison to the corresponding period last year
• The live storage available in reservoirs in Himachal and Punjab in the northern region has been cumulatively counted to be 14 BCM, 78 per cent of their total live storage capacity.
• The rise in the water status in these two states has been instrumental in jacking up the overall status of the region. The storage of the reservoirs during corresponding period of last year in the region was 72 per cent