PM chairs meeting of National Ganga River Basin Authority

[Hindustani78]

Ministry of Water Resources
05-November, 2018 15:45 IST
Over 500 children participated in NMCG’S Bal Ganga Mela in Noida yesterday

NMCG signed an MOU with HCL foundation to engage in Afforestation and Public outreach activities

National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) in partnership with HCL Foundation and German development agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) organized “Bal Ganga Mela” at HCL’s Noida campus on sunday, November 4, 2018. More than 500 children from HCL Foundation-supported government schools in Noida, bridge centres, Power of One community champions and scholars participated in the mela. The day is symbolic as it marks the declaration of Ganga as the National River of India in 2008 and is dedicated to raising awareness about rejuvenating the holy river and teaching children to become environmentally aware and responsible citizens.

The Bal Ganga Mela was inaugurated by Shri U. P. Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation in the presence of Shri Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director General, NMCG, Ms. Nidhi Pundhir, Director, CSR, and Head, HCL Foundation, Ms. Martina Burkard, Programme Director, GIZ (Support for Ganga Rejuvenation) and Mr. Anil Kumar Singh, Chief Development Officer, Gautam Budh Nagar. The Mela was organized with the objective to create awareness among school children on the importance of water in general and rivers in particular, so that they understand the importance of unpolluted, clean water and water security. Also, to foster respect for the natural environment and motivate children to become ambassadors of change, who influence and motivate others towards river rejuvenation and water conservation.

The participating children engaged in day-long activities that included Water Quality Testing, Waste Segregation, Interactive Games, Street Play, Rangoli, Painting, Quiz Competition and Movie Screening.The Bal Mela offered outdoor engaging and participatory activities for children, aimed to motivate the participants to become ‘stewards’ of the Ganga and water in general within their schools as well as in their families and communities. The hands-on and interactive activities had clear underlying messages that are relevant to their daily lives with reference to Ganga rejuvenation and water conservation.

NMCG is committed towards afforestation and conservation of the Ganga Basin’s ecosystem and its indigenous flora and fauna. To scale up the momentum in this direction, NMCG also signed an MoU with the HCL Foundation to work on tributaries of Ganga, - Hindon and Yamuna and increase forest cover in parts of UP and Uttarakhand. The two organizations will work for

• Sensitization/awareness programs on Forest and Environment Conservation.

• Urban and peri urban afforestation under the urban forest model of HCL Foundation- “Foundation Upvan.

• Mass afforestation on Government allotted land and creation of Urban Forests in partnership with the HCL Foundation and District Administration.

• Ensure plantation success rate of 60 to 70% at the end of 10 years from the date of signing of the MoU between both the parties.



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NP/IA

 

[Hindustani78]

Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation
06-November, 2018 10:34 IST
Pilot Ganga Grams will be the role model for village cleanliness

Sustainable behavior towards better sanitation is everyone’s responsibility: Union Minister Uma Bharati

Union Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation Ms. Uma Bharati has said that maintaining sustainable behavior towards better sanitation is everyone’s responsibility. She was speaking in Ganga Gram Swachchhata Sammelan at Chyavan Rishi Ashram in Chousa Village of Buxar district in Bihar yesterday. About four thousands Swachhagrahis, Ganga volunteers, youth organization members, students, women groups and people from all walks of life attended the sammelan.

Ganga Gram is a concept to transform the villages on the bank of river Ganga into ideal villages with emphasis on Open Defecation Free, Solid and Liquid Waste Management, Water Conservation, Ground Water Recharge, modern crematorium, tree plantation, organic and medicinal plants. After declaration of all 4465 Ganga Bank villages as ODF, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is working in the direction of sustaining the ODF status of this area. In this regard, Ms. Uma Bharati appreciated the efforts made by district team, Panchayat representatives towards making Buxar district ODF. She underlined that India has shown to the world the commitment of the Government and achieved national sanitation coverage from a lowly 39 per cent to over 95 per cent. She urged people to participate in SLWM activities, not to litter around and pollute water sources, take care of their waste management and promote organic farming.

Mr. Munna Tiwari, MLA, senior officials from the Centre and the State and leaders from nearby Panchayats were also present in the Sammelan. Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is organizing a series of Ganga Gram Swachhata Sammelan during this month.

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AR/SNC/SD

 

[Hindustani78]

Ministry of Water Resources
15-November, 2018 12:37 IST
NMCG brainstorms on G-governance of Namami Gange programme through Geospatial technology

Develops Bhuvan Ganga geo-portal and Bhuvan Ganga Mobile App in collaboration with ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre Survey of India uses drones to capture 360 degree view of Kumbh Mela area to identify pollution sources IIT Kanpur working on project for reconstructing the Ganga of the past using Corona Archival imagery

National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) organized a brainstorming session on World GIS Day 2018 in New Delhi yesterday, with the theme ‘G-Governance of Namami Gange programme through Geospatial Technology’. The objective of the session was to share the knowledge on use and application of geospatial technology for monitoring and management of various activities being undertaken under Namami Gange Programme, and also provide feedback on the current use of this technology with reference to Ganga Basin. The brainstorming session brought together decision makers, technocrats and implementing agencies for an engaging discussion.

Speaking on the occasion Shri U.P Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation said that the lack of reliable data is the biggest challenge in the water sector. Geospatial technology can give vital information about the river basin for better monitoring, planning and feedback about programmes for river cleaning and rejuvenation, he said.

Geographical Information System (GIS) technology is widely used in river basin management. The Namami Gange programme has high priority for research and evidence based decision making, and has special place for the use of new technology including Geospatial technology. NMCG is already executing a number of research projects based on Geospatial technology.

In his opening remarks, Shri. Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, DG, NMCG said “The use of GIS technologies has improved our ground level understanding of the Ganga River Basin and we have been able to evolve evidence based policies and develop projects that are bringing about tremendous changes at the ground level. The GIS cell of NMCG has brought about paradigm shift in visualisation of all crucial spatial and non spatial information of Ganga basin as it is a robust, scalable and standards-based dissemination framework. GIS mapping becomes extremely important at NMCG to achieve its objective of effective abatement of pollution in river Ganga because of its limitless potential.”

NMCG has signed an MoU with National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) in the use of geospatial technology in June 2015. They have developed Bhuvan Ganga Geoportal and Bhuvan Ganga Mobile Application .

Bhuvan Ganga Geoportal is available for water quality monitoring, hydrological monitoring, geomorphological monitoring, bio-resources monitoring, and comprehensive geospatial database. Speaking on the occasion Shri Santanu Chowdhury,Director, National Remote Sensing Centre said that the Bhuvan Ganga mobile application is a user-friendly application to enable user/public to collect and report information on various pollution sources that affect water quality of River Ganga. The mobile application has provision to collect information regarding urban sewage, semi-urban/rural sewage, natural drains/nallas, industrial waste water, solid waste disposal or any other pollution source. The application is available for download from the Bhuvan Ganga web portal as well as Google Play store.

Speaking on the occasion Surveyor General of India Lt.General Girish Kumar VSM informed that the use of Drones and vehicles with cameras have captured 360 degree panoramic views of the Kumb Mela areas, which have also helped in identifying polluted Nalas joining the river Ganga. Lt.General. Girish Kumar also talked about the Sahyog Mobile App which will improve content with the help of citizens. NMCG has also collaborated with Survey of India to facilitate the Ganga rejuvenation task by using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology for mapping the Ganga basin in high resolution generating Digital Elevation Models (DEM). These models will provide valuable information for use not only in making urban river plans, but also for identifying the baseline of river flood plains and regulating them for their restoration and preservation. This technology enables identification of entire topography of an area making it easy for policy makers to analyse the available data and improve decision-making process. Critical pollution hotspots are also easily identified through this technology. In addition, the high resolution GIS enabled data will help in regulating the proposed protected and regulatory zones along the banks of river.

IIT Kanpur is executing a project on ‘Reconstructing the Ganga of the Past from Corona archival imagery’ Deliverables of Corona project would be to make all processed Corona images available for upload on public portal such as Bhuvan, develop an Atlas of the Ganga River showing a comparison between 1960s and the present, establish the reference condition of the Ganga river and quantify the changes in morphological characteristics and land-use/land-cover within the Ganga valley between 1960s and present, propose a policy document on ‘desirable’ land-use within the Ganga valley, capacity building for Corona image processing through training workshops including development of a working manual.

Another project under execution is on ‘Generation of Digital Elevation Model/ Digital Terrain Model using suitable sensors on airborne platform for a corridor along the main stem of River Ganga’ by Survey of India. Deliverables of mapping would be Digital Elevation Model/ Digital Terrain Model (The bare earth model has vertical accuracy better than 50 cm), contour of 1.0 m, ortho-photos (25 cm Ground sampling distance or better), GIS ready dataset, outlet/vent of sewerage and other discharge from all dwelling units, industrial, commercial and all type of other institutions mapping from the sources outlet to the public drainage network, the entire public network integrated with the present project mapping, crematoria, ghats, solid waste disposal sites, STP/ETP/CETP etc for defined project area of interest.



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NP/MS/MS

 

[Hindustani78]

Ministry of Water Resources
29-November, 2018 16:56 IST
Experts Exchange ideas on Ganga Museum

National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) is planning to set up a Ganga Exhibition and a Ganga Museum as an instrument for public outreach, depicting the river’s history and mythology, its importance for the livelihood of a huge population, as well as efforts for Ganga Rejuvenation.

Expert from India and the European Union are meeting for two days on 29th & 30th November, 2018 to hold an International Workshop on “Developing a Ganga Museum Concept: Exchanging Experiences and Ideas between India and Europe” along with GIZ India as a part of Indo German Development Co-operation to exchange ideas and experiences regarding various aspects of the proposed museum, knowledge centre and exhibition.

Delivering the keynote address, Secretary Ministry of Water Resources River Developing and Ganga Rejuvenation Shri UP Singh said that the Ganga Museum should reflect all the aspects of the river like it’s mythological and spiritual significance, efforts to rejuvenate the river, economic activities going on along its banks and its biodiversity and aquatic life including fishes, turtles, dolphins etc. He hoped that ideas of international experts will enrich the concept of Ganga Museum.



Director General, NMCG Shri R.R.Mishra said that NMCG has been working towards the possibility for the establishment of a Ganga Museum. Identification of an appropriate location will be the essence of the project. People are connected with Ganga in different ways as pilgrims, as tourists and as beneficiaries of economic activities around it. Everybody should feel connected with the river. He said the Ganga Museum should be designed in such a way as to increase the connect and motivation to keep the river clean as a continuous process.



About 35 international and Indian museum experts as well representatives of Ministries of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Art, Culture and Youth and Wildlife Institute of India are participating in the workshop. The ideas thrown up in the workshop will be compiled in a manual that will be used as a basis to further implement the necessary steps to set up a Ganga Museum and Exhibition.

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NP/SKP/JK/SK