Indore : “The country needs a law for water use whether it is water from rivers, lakes or groundwater and therefore the Centre is contemplating on bringing in such law with the consent of states and people.”
These thoughts were expressed by Union Minister for Water Resources, Rural Development and Ganges Cleaning, Uma Bharati during a press conference here, on Saturday.
Speaking to journalists, the minister said that water resources in the country are fast shrinking and ground water has fallen dangerously low in many places. In view of such situation, the country needs a law to regulate use of water from rivers, lakes and groundwater sources.
The country also needs to stop pollution of rivers and harvest rain water in a manner where the resources are restored to their former levels. In this context, Ms Bharati said that she was surprised to note that there is no agency to deal with curbing pollution of rivers in the country.
Moreover, she said that there are no agencies or companies in the country equipped with technology or knowhow or expertise to clean rivers, ghats etc and stop their pollution.
Speaking of construction of dams on major rivers, she said: “Currently there are 150 projects in the pipeline but most of them are not making any progress.” She further said that the government has earmarked 38 projects and are searching for suitable agencies to execute them.
Speaking on cleaning of Ganges, Bharati said that the Union Government would now take up the cleaning project and would fund the project. She said that funding would be obtained from foreign companies and local corporate. She further said that Ganga protection has received Rs 20 crore so far and has been spent where needed.
Addressing the issue of Ganga Nirmal, Ms Bharati said Phase I of the project would be unveiled in October 2016 and by 2018 the entire project would be unveiled.
Ms Bharati termed tactics of stalling the House by Rahul and Sonia Gandhi as ‘childish’ and added that rather than saying she is daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi and thinking in terms of Emergency, she should learn how two wars were waged and won against Pakistan.
