The sewage treatment capacity in towns along the Ganga is being enhanced substantially as part of efforts to clean the river, a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was told. The meeting on Modi’s ambitious programme ‘Namaami Gange’ was also informed that intensive monitoring and inspection of the grossly-polluting industries has been taken up, which has led to “considerable improvement” in the water quality of some of the tributaries of the river, a PMO statement said.

Senior officials from various government departments made presentations on the programme and apprised the prime minister of action taken and the progress made on it, it said.

According to the statement, the officials said the sewage treatment capacity in towns along the river is being enhanced substantially and considerable focus is being placed on large cities like Haridwar, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Bhagalpur, Howrah and Kolkata. “Intensive monitoring and inspection of the grossly-polluting industries has been taken up,” the statement said.

“The officials said that this has led to considerable improvement in the water quality of some of the tributaries of the river Ganga,” it added. Parameters such as “dissolved oxygen” and “biochemical oxygen demand” have been studied as part of this assessment, the meeting was told last evening.

The prime minister was also apprised of the considerable progress made in rural sanitation in villages along the banks of the river Ganga, the statement said. Modi stressed on the need to further increase public awareness and participation in the task of cleaning the river.

The meeting was attended by top officials from the PMO, NITI Aayog, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, National Mission for Clean Ganga and Central Pollution Control Board.

The meeting on ‘Namaami Gange’ assumed significance as it was the first since the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the river’s two key basin states whose previous governments were accused by the Centre of not cooperating fully.

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