In May 2025, the 62nd Executive Committee (EC) Meeting of National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) held under the chairmanship of Rajeev Kumar Mital, Director-General (DG) of NMCG in New Delhi, Delhi. The meeting was primarily focused on sustainability in river rejuvenation. During the EC meeting, key projects for Ganga Rejuvenation have been approved that align with the mission’s objectives of ecosystem restoration across the Ganga basin.
- Also, conservation of critical wetlands and promoting the reuse of treated wastewater through city specific reuse plans were discussed in the meeting.
Key Attendees: Mahabir Prasad, Joint Secretary & Financial Advisor in the Ministry of Power(MoP) and additional charge of Financial Advisor for the Department of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation(DoWRGR) under the Ministry of Jal Shakti(MoJS); Nalin Srivastava, Deputy DG of NMCG; Anoop Kumar Srivastava, Executive Director (ED) (Technical), among others were present at the meeting.
Key Projects Approved:
i.Wetland Conservation: The EC approved the ‘Conserving and Sustainably Managing Nathmalpur Bhagad (Wetland) in Bhojpur district, Bihar’, will be developed with an estimated cost of Rs 3.51 crore. This project is the 5th wetland being undertaken under NGP.
- The newly approved project in Bihar proposes to use a ‘dual approach’ with interventions at the sub-basin (Ghaghara, Gomti & Sone confluence) and site levels (Nathmalpur Bhagad).
- It includes certain activities like: wetland delineation, hydrological regime enhancement, species and habitat conservation, among others, to ensure the long-term health and sustainability of the wetland ecosystem
Points to Note:
- So far, total 4 wetlands have been already sanctioned under Namami Gange conservation.
- Among these 4 wetlands, 3 are in Uttar Pradesh (UP) i.e. Kalewada Jheel (Muzaffarnagar); Namiya Dah Jheel (Prayagraj) and Reoti Dah Wetland (Ballia)
- And, one in Jharkhand: Udhwa Lake (Ramsar Site), Sahibganj.
ii.Treated Wastewater Reuse: In addition to that, the EC has approved funding of total Rs 34.50 lakh for the ‘Capacity Building Initiatives for making water-sensitive cities in the Ganga Basin’ Project.
- The project aims to prepare a City Plans and training on the reuse of treated wastewater for Agra and Prayagraj districts of UP.
- It also aims at the preparation of city level reuse plan in alignment with the National Framework for Safe Reuse of Treated Water (SRTW) prepared by NMCG.
About Namami Gange Programme:
i.It is an integrated conservation mission, approved by the Government of India (GoI) in 2014 as ‘Flagship Programme’, with total budget outlay of Rs 20,000 crore.
ii.The programme aims to achieve two main objectives of effective abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of National River Ganga.
iii.The programme comprises 8 main pillars: sewage treatment infrastructure, river-surface cleaning, afforestation, industrial effluent monitoring, river-front development, bio-diversity, public awareness and Ganga Gram.
iv.The programme is implemented by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) under the Department of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation (DoWR, RD & GR), Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS).
v.The Namami Gange Program has been recognised as one of the Top TEN, World Restoration flagship initiatives by UN Decade (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) & Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)).
About NMCG:
It was registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860Â in 2011. It is the implementation wing of National Council for Rejuvenation, Protection and Management of River Ganga (referred as National Ganga Council), set up in 2016 replacing the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NRGBA).
Director-General (DG)-Â Rajeev Kumar Mital
About Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS):
Union Minister- Chandrakant Raghunath Patil (Constituency- Navsari, Gujarat)
Minister of State (MoS)- V. Somanna (Constituency- Tumkur, Karnataka); Raj Bhushan Choudhary (Constituency- Muzaffarpur, Bihar)
