New Delhi, March 17: The Detailed Project Report (DPR) on forestry intervention for a Clean Ganga, which envisages extensive plantations in natural, agricultural, and urban landscapes as also mass awareness drives to boost efforts for protecting the river, will be released here next week.
Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Uma Bharti, will release the DPR on March 22, 2016 on which a day-long workshop has been planned that will also be attended by Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, an official statement said here. The government had entrusted Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun, to prepare the DPR in April last year with an eye on achieving an increase in the river’s water flow.
FRI submitted the draft DPR to National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG)on February 16 this year. The final report, prepared after incorporating suggestions and comments by NMCG and other officials, will now be released by Bharti. FRI has designed four sets of field data formats to obtain site-based information on proposed forestry plantations in natural, agricultural, and urban landscapes along the river course and other conservation interventions.
More than 8,000 data sheets were obtained from five states along the river course. The institute also developed software to collate, analyse and report generation on potential plantation and treatment models. Extensive plantations in natural, agricultural, and urban landscapes besides conservation interventions such as soil and water conservation, riparian wildlife management, wetland management and supporting activities such as policy and law interventions, concurrent research, monitoring and evaluation, and mass awareness campaigns have been envisioned in the DPR.
Altogether, 40 different plantation and treatment models have been selected for implementation by five states — Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The project will be implemented over a period of five years by the State Forest Departments of these five states in Phase-I (2016-2021), the statement said. As part of the project, active involvement of two battalions of Eco Task Force has been envisaged in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh for raising plantations in difficult terrains.
The specific state forest departments are also expected to involve ITBP, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and civil society organisations for various proposed activities, including monitoring and awareness campaigns. The statement said that the event will also be attended by Union Minister of State for Water Resources River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Sanwar Lal Jat. Senior officials of the five state governments, scientists, environmentalists, representatives of ETF, ITBP, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and civil society organizations are likely to take part in the workshop. The DPR preparation saw extensive consultations with various stakeholders at the national and state levels and incorporation of science-based methodology, including use of remote sensing and GIS technologies for spatial analysis and modelling of pre-delineated Ganga riverscape covering 83,946sq.kmout of a much larger Ganga River basin area, the country, the Ministry said.
