Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said that 47 of the 225 projects for cleaning the Ganga and its tributaries have been completed.

At an event here, the minister stressed that the Ganga cannot be clean unless its tributaries are clean.

He informed that of the 14 ongoing projects on the Yamuna, a major tributary of the Ganga, two are in Uttar Pradesh (Mathura and Varanasi), 10 in Delhi and two in Haryana (Sonepat and Panipat).

Gadkari said the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is also creating a 800-acre garden along the banks of the Yamuna in the national capital.

"The Ganga cannot be clean if its tributaries are not clean. So, we have decided to take up projects on its tributaries and sub-tributaries," he said.

Gadkari said he had also cleared a Rs 37 crore-proposal for a sewage treatment plant for the Sarayu river in Ayodhya.

"The work to clean water in Mathura and Vrindavan, the cities of Lord Krishna, is going on. Now, we have also begun the cleaning work in Lord Ram's Ayodhya. We are very proud of it," Gadkari said.

He added that projects on the Hindon and the Kali, the two tributaries of the Yamuna, are also being taken up.

Meanwhile, the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) today signed an MoU with the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) for 2 crore litres per day of treated water for the Mathura refinery.

For this, a 20 MLD tertiary treatment plant will be set up which will supply treated waste water to the Mathura refinery of the IOCL.

This will also promote the market for recycle/reuse of treated waste water in India, which will further help in sustaining the operation of the infrastructure created, a need of the hour in the sewage sector.

The cost for the development and operation of the Tertiary Treatment Plant (TTP) for 15 years is Rs 162.38 crore. The IOCL will bear the entire operations and maintenance cost of the TTP amounting to Rs 82.38 crore for a period of 15 years.

Over and above this, the IOCL will pay Rs 8.70 per kilo litre towards the partial capital cost for the development of the TTP.