As part of the plan to promote the Ganga as a waterway for commercial activities, the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is set to start dredging, on a pilot basis, the 10-km stretch between Saidpur and Ghazipur, near Varanasi.
Plans are also being readied to dredge the 1,600-km stretch between Varanasi and Haldia, on the banks of the Hooghly, in West Bengal.
While the Rs. 10-crore contract for dredging the 10-km stretch has been given to a multinational company, the IWAI has prepared a Rs.4,200-crore project, to be executed with the World Bank’s assistance, to remove silt from the Ganga between Varanasi and Haldia so as to develop an “integrated river water freight corridor” with road and rail links at crucial points, official sources say.
In the first phase, the IWAI will start dredging next month between Varanasi and Patna to remove 3.25 lakh cubic metres of silt.
Around six multinational firms have carried out surveys, some pointing to technical difficulties in the work because the depth of river on this stretch is less at several places, the sources say.
However, environmental activists are worried that the Centre’s “disastrous” plan will further degrade the river.
Using the Ganga for commercial activities will deal a “death blow” to it, warns V.N. Mishra, head of the Sankat Mochan Foundation, a trust that works for the cleaning and revival of the river. The commercial exploitation, he argues, will cause the river and its eco-system an irreversible loss.
“The government should focus on cleaning the river and maintaining its natural flow... Instead, plans are being made to construct dams at every 100 km, which will kill it. The Ganga is the lifeline of 40 crore people. Make efforts to clean it. By just ensuring that not a single drop of sewage and pollutant goes into the river, we can address 90 per cent of the problems,” he says.