The Supreme Court has given the Centre a fortnight to come up with a road-map to make the River Ganga pollution free.
It has questioned the government as to why urgent steps are not being taken to clean the river.
A Bench headed by Justice T.S. Thakur said the issue of cleaning the River Ganga is shuttling between two ministries - the Water Resources Ministry and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
The apex court bench said the clean-up project should be done in stretches as it cannot be undertaken at one go.
The issue of the cleaning up of the River Ganga is being monitored by the apex court and several applications have been filed.
The 2,500-kilometre river passes through 29 major cities, 23 small cities and 48 towns.
The ambitious Ganga Action Plan to clean the river up was launched by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985.