Cleaning of six major river basins on cards: Shekhawat

The government signed agreements with technical institutes for preparing outlines of river basin management plans for the Narmada, Godavari, Krishna, Cauvery, Periyar, and Mahanadi.

New Delhi: The government will undertake the work of cleaning six major river basins on the lines of the Ganga and has roped in 12 top technical institutions to conduct a study and formulate a management plan, Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said on Wednesday.

Following the success of the Ganga River Basin Management Plan framed by a consortium of seven IITs led by IIT Kanpur, the government on Wednesday signed agreements with different technical institutes for preparing the outlines of river basin management plans for the Narmada, Godavari, Krishna, Cauvery, Periyar, and the Mahanadi.

The agreements were signed between the institutes and the National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD) under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

The Mahanadi River Basin Management Plan will be undertaken by IIT Raipur and IIT Rourkela, Narmada by IIT Indore and IIT Gandhinagar, Godavari by IIT Hyderabad and NEERI Nagpur, Cauvery by IISc Bengaluru and NIT Trichy, and the Periyar River Basin Management Plan by IIT Palakkad and NIT Calicut.

Speaking at the event, Shekhawat highlighted that an announcement in this regard was first made by then President Ram Nath Kovind in an address to a joint sitting of Parliament in 2019.

"In 2019, then President Ram Nath Kovind had spoken about working on six river basins in the country on the same level as the work done in the Ganga basin. He had talked about studying the basins...so that status can be evaluated and a management plan can be made," he said.

Kovind had said the government would endeavour to clean up the rivers.

"We are starting a new era in river basin management," Shekhawat said, stressing on completing studies of the basins at a "new speed and scale".

"The way India has worked on different issues related to water...a holistic approach has been taken. Almost all initiatives taken are among the largest in the world, whether it is drinking water, cleaning rivers or groundwater recharge and aquifers," he said.

He said the work done by the Centre for Ganga River Basin Management and Studies, which was established in 2016 at IIT Kanpur, will be the benchmark for the work to be done in these river basins.

The minister also emphasized the importance of the academia and the government working together for river basin management.