Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti announced formation of the committee while chairing the first meeting of the Empowered Task Force on Ganga here today, an official statement said.
The secretaries of ministries of Water Resources, Environment and Forest, and Drinking Water and Sanitation will be members of the panel, which will meet at least once every fortnight.
Reviewing the progress of the programme, Bharti expressed dissatisfaction over the delay in obtaining no-objection certificates (NoCs) from states, particularly Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, and said these issues need to be sorted out "at the earliest".
She asked officials to complete works on old projects.
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Till December 2016, 253.50 MLD sewage treatment capacity has been created. Sewer network of 3,896.55km is to be laid under these projects. Sewer network of 1,060.96km has been laid and the rest is under progress.
Bharti said that online effluent monitoring system (EMS) has been installed in 572 out of 760 grossly polluting industries (GPIs) and data is being captured at dashboard from 266 such industries.
The minister said that eight real-time water quality monitoring stations (RTWQMS) are operational under the National Hydrology Project.
A network of 113 RTWQMS has been planned. In Phase-I, 36 stations are under installation and to be completed by March 2017. CPCB has proposed to install nine RTWQMS on the tributaries of Ganga.
A total of 8,96,415 (54 per cent) individual household
latrines have been completed, she said.
The minister said that 182 ghats and 118 crematoria projects to be built along the river have been sanctioned. Out of these, works on 50 ghats and 15 crematoria are under progress.
Liquid and solid waste management in 25 selected villages will be commissioned within next three months. Pre-plantation activities will be taken up in all five states through which the Ganga flows, so that plantations against the work plan of 2016-17, as well as 2017-18 are taken up during the next monsoon season, she added.
The meeting was attended by secretary of Water Resources, Drinking and Water Sanitation and senior officials from various central ministries and state governments.