The government has sanctioned 254 projects for the rejuvenation of River Ganga, Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari said Wednesday, adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested to clean the river first and then focus on its continuous flow.
Seeking to blunt the criticism on the government's exercise to clean the river, he said a lot of projects have been undertaken under the Namami Gange Mission and there will be significant changes on the ground after 2019.
"The prime minister gave us a suggestion that first you make Ganga clean and then talk about its 'Aviral Dhara' (continuous flow)," Gadkari said at the Third India Water Impact Summit 2018 here.
The minister noted that experts had recommended that 'aviralta' was a "crucial issue" for the river following which the government came out with a notification in this regard.
In October, the Centre had notified the minimum environmental flows for River Ganga that has to be maintained at various locations on the river. Environmental flows are the acceptable flow regimes that are required to maintain a river in the desired environmental state or predetermined state.
"In next year, in March, April, May and June, I am confident that you will see 'aviral' Ganga," Gadkari said.
The NDA-led Centre had faced flak over the issue following the death of Ganga activist G D Agarwal, who had been campaigning for cleaning of the river and making it 'aviral'.
Gadkari said since the inception of Ganga cleaning programme (in 1985) till 2014, the central government had spent less than Rs 4,000 crore on the issue but with the launch of the Namami Gange programme, a provision of
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