UP identifies 8 villages to be developed as Ganga Grams

LUCKNOW: Eight villages along the main segment of the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh will be developed into model villages in the first phase.

Known as ‘Ganga Grams’, the villages will have comprehensive rural sanitation, developed water bodies, ghats and crematoria, among other things.

Four of the eight villages are in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, two in Bulandshahr and one each in Hapur and Allahabad districts.

The state panchayati raj department has identified these villages. Mission director, Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), Vijay Kiran Anand, sent the list to the centre on July 16.

Two more villages are likely to be identified and added to the list before a function in Allahabad on August 12 when chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Union minister for water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation Uma Bharti will formally announce the names of the villages and the work that will be done there to develop them as ‘Ganga Grams’.

These eight UP villages are part of the 30 villages identified across the country in the first phase under the Ganga Gram scheme.

Adityanath and Bharti will also kick off a major awareness campaign to make all the villages in the state open defecation free (ODF). Several other announcements are expected the same day.

“All the eight villages are ODF and some more out of the 1600 villages along the bank of the Ganga will be taken up in the next phase for their development into ‘Ganga Grams,” additional chief secretary, panchayati raj, Chunchal Kumar Tiwari told HT.

The Central government had announced the ‘Ganga Gram’ scheme last year.

The scheme seeks to make villages open defecation free, check direct discharge of untreated liquid wastewater from such villages into the Ganga, facilitate adequate infrastructure for crematoria, develop proper solid waste disposal facilities and promote better sanitation practices.

Uttar Pradesh has already declared all the 1600 villages along the Ganga in the state as open defecation free.