Gadkari who took over the ministry last month

NEW DELHI: Promising to fast-track all projects relating to Ganga cleaning, Union water resources minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said he and his team would try their level best to show significant improvement in quality of the river water by March, 2019 before the country holds its next general elections.“Hamare paas samay ki kami hai (we have paucity of time)...I don’t want to commit anything. But, we as a team will try our level best to show maximum good result by March (2019), hamare chunav ke pehle (before our general election)”, saidHis remarks came on the occasion of signing of tripartite agreements with private sector concessionaires for country’s first two hybrid annuity PPP projects for setting up STPs in Haridwar and Varanasi.Asked about the possibility of meeting the deadline (of March, 2019) when many projects have not yet reached even the construction phase, the minister said, “Let's try for it, think for the best. It is a difficult task. This is not my commitment and I am not saying I will complete it (the projects)...I am saying I will try my best to complete it.”Under the hybrid annuity model, the construction, operation and maintenance of sewage treatment plant (STP) is undertaken by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to be created by winning bidder. As per this model, 40% of the quoted capital cost will be paid on completion of construction while the remaining 60% of the cost will be paid over 15 years as annuities along with operation and maintenance cost (O&M) expenses.One of the most important features of this model is that both the annuity and O&M payments are linked to the performance of the STP. Such a model has been adopted successfully in highway sector which comes under Gadkari. NMCG ) has lined up 14 more such projects for Allahabad, Kanpur, Farukhabad, Patna, Bhagalpur, Kolkata and Howrah - the cities which pollute the river Ganga most.The Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay foundation stone for setting up four STPs of 140 MLD of capacity in Patna on October 14. The total cost of these four projects would be Rs 738.14 crore.Gadkari said the tender process of all these projects would be completed by December and work orders would be issued by March next year.He emphasised that ensuring a 'nirmal Ganga' (Clean Ganga) was the government's priority.Asked whether he has delinked ‘nirmal (clean) Ganga’ from ‘aviral (uninterrupted flow) Ganga’ - the twin objectives of the Namami Gange programme, the minister said he had not changed anything. He added that the ‘aviral Ganga’ would be ensured automatically once the river is clean.He also spoke about carrying out plantation exercise in over 4,500 villages along the river Ganga by adopting a method of geo-tagging the saplings so that the development of all the plants can be tracked.