To aid clean-up, Survey of India will map Ganga

Proposal for the project is in an advanced stage and the survey would begin soon. "The project will take two years to complete, as we have to identify and quantify the silt, apart from identifying locations of all the polluting agencies," he explained.

Students going around an exhibition of mapping organised by the Geological Survey of India in Hyderabad on Wednesday. Photo: Nagara Gopal

The Survey of India (SOI) is all set to map and survey the Ganga for government agency National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), a registered society under the Union Ministry for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.

The proposal for the project is in the advanced stage and survey would begin soon, said Swarna Subba Rao, Surveyor-General of India, SOI.

“The entire project to map the Ganga will cost Rs.542 crore. It is a part of the ‘Clean Ganga’ initiative, started by the Centre,” he told The Hindu at a Geographic Information System (GIS) workshop/exhibition held here on Wednesday.

Mr. Rao said ‘Lidar’ (a laser technique) and air photography would be used to map the river. The latter includes surveying the Ganga with regular aircrafts.

“The project will take two years to complete, as we have to identify and quantify the silt, apart from identifying locations of all the polluting agencies,” he explained.

Mapping all coal fields

Mr. Rao also said SOI would complete mapping all coal fields in the country by December 2015, after which it would be handed over to public sector undertaking Coal India Limited (CIL).

“The project, which began three years ago, is in the second phase now. Except for the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, work on mapping coal fields has begun in all other States in India,” he stated.