UK Indians invited to help clean Ganga
MEMBERS of the Indian diaspora have been invited to help raise funds to clean the polluted River Ganga, one of the key projects of the government of prime minister Narendra Modi.
At an event last week to mark the Ganga Connect exhibition, themed on the river rejuvenation and which toured the UK last month, Indian High Commissioner to the UK, Gaitri Issar Kumar, said, “We want to make sure people from all over the UK are able to participate.”
Teams from India and the UK gathered for an event last Thursday (25) as officials from the National Mission for Clean Ganga and the Indian High Commission explained IndoUK efforts to collaborate on the river clean-up agenda.
Four Ganga Connect chapters were launched across the UK in London, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales.
Each chapter will have conveners who will connect various interest groups with the Namami Gange programme, including scientists, technology companies, investors and community members. The aim is to host raise awareness by holding workshops and outreach programmes on efforts to rejuvenate the Ganges.
According to the high commissioner, 10-12 UK companies are involved in the Ganga river basin and will sharing their expertise on cleaning up and reviving the economy, biodiversity and tourism along the banks.
The Indian government has allocated $4billion (£3.2bn) for phase two of the project, which will focus on the Ganga’s tributaries. Officials from India said they were speaking to experts worldwide to adopt best practices in the country.
“It took 30 years to clean the Thames and 40 years for the Rhine,” an official said, indicating the long-term nature of such programmes.
In India, it is estimated that the Ganga supports the lives and livelihoods of 56 million people while it flows through eight states.
India’s environment, forests and climate change minister Bhupender Yadav inaugurated the exhibition in Glasgow on the margins of the COP26 climate summit last month. It then travelled to Cardiff, Birmingham and Oxford,
before arriving in London.
In London last month, Rozy Agarwal, executive director of NMCG, and Dr Vinod Tare, founding head of think tank and innovation agency cGanga and a faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur took part in business, finance and scientific roundtables.
India’s water resources minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat also hosted a virtual roundtable with eminent
members of the Indian diaspora in the UK last week.
Besides the launch of the four new chapters, a ScotlandIndia Water Partnership was unveiled; it will build on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the NMCG and the government of Scotland from 2017 and channel the “high level of interest” among Scottish water specialist entities towards the Indian market.