New Delhi, August 31: Cleaning up the Ganga is a monumental but achievable task, believes Germany that cleaned up two of its own rivers — Danube and the clinically dead Rhine.
Germany, which joined hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet Namami Gange project in 2015, has also earmarked 120 million euros of interest subsidised loan and 1.5 million euros towards technical assistance for the Ganga action plan.
The terms of reference of the 20-year loan with a grace period of five years have now been fixed and assessments are ongoing. The Modi government’s ‘Clean Ganga Project’ involves a budget of Rs 20,000 crore or nearly 2.5 billion euros.
German officials, however, point out that the Rhine river, which is half the length of the Ganga and runs through six countries as riparian states, took almost 30 years to be cleaned and had salmon back in it by 1997 at a cost of 45 billion euros.
“Germany can capitalise on experiences that we have made in cleaning up the Rhine and the Danube. The lessons we learnt is you need time, money and right approach. You have to take on board all stakeholders from government authorities, local bodies, representatives of industry, agriculture and also make sure individual households are part of this endeavour,” says Dr Jasper Wieck, Charge D’affaires at the German embassy. The diplomat also underlined that the Ganga basin is home to more than 600 million people who need to be educated about water treatment, reduction of waste water and its toxicity.
Germany is working closely in Rishikesh and Haridwar where it is providing technical cooperation to the tune of 20 million euros towards sewage network creation, setting up of pumps, upgrading and optimising existing treatment plants. German Development Bank KfW has also introduced a Ganga box as pilot project at a school in Rishikesh as part of the curriculum. This includes mythological tales on Ganga to sensitise kids and activity books to bring about attitudinal changes, say officials.
Source Tribune India
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