Gomti banks to be developed like Sabarmati riverfront: Rajnath
LUCKNOW: Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday announced cleaning up of the Gomti river on the lines of the Ganga cleaning project.
Singh, who is Member of Parliament from Lucknow, also said that from Kudia Ghat to La Martiniere College in Lucknow, the banks of Gomti would be developed on the lines of Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad
Singh, was accompanied by union water resources minister Uma Bharti, said: “Health of rivers is indicative of the health of a nation. When a country’s rivers start drying, its fate also dries up.” He said while addressing a cleanliness awareness programme here.
The objective of the Centre is not only to develop the country as an economic capital but also a spiritual capital, for which unhindered flow, cleanliness and clearness of its rivers is necessary, Singh said.
Speaking on the occasion, Bharti said that through shortterm and long-term schemes Gomti would become visibly clear within three years and it would be made completely clean in 10 years.
She, too, said the Gomti would be cleaned on the lines of Ganga and that a survey had been com- pleted for it. She added: “Cleaning Gomti would be a lot easier than Sabarmati, which had dried up.”
In an oblique reference to the previous UPA government, Bharti said, “we have come out of ten years of ice age, the first stream has come out and Ganga has been associated with water resource.”
Singh said i nitially t he Gomti riverfront from Martyrs’ Memorial to La Martiniere College would be developed. Bharti quickly disclosed that on Singh’s initiative she had already sent experts from Water and Power Consultancy Services (WAPCOS), to Lucknow for looking into reasons for the river’s poor health and ways to develop the riverfront. “The technical status report on the river is ready. The ministers have already taken expert opinion, which is in favour of diverting nullahs and sewers that open into the river, and laying sewerage in those city areas, which still lack the facility,” she said.
“Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted the visiting Chinese premier and his wife recently on the Sabarmati riverfront, I promise that union home minister Rajnath Singh, too, would be able to host a foreign dignitary on the Gomti riverfront once we apply permanent make-up to the river,” Bharti said. Singh said the Gomti cleanliness drive would also ease city’s drinking water problems.On Monday he had announced a top-of-the-line hospital for Lucknow, along with a Rs 900 crore ring road besides a world class railway terminus at Gomtinagar. He had also announced that he would be providing Rs 1 crore from his MP Development Fund for development of Lucknow (east) assembly segment, now represented by veteran Lalji Tandon’s son Ashutosh Tandon ‘Gopal’.