Technology and Financial Innovation to drive the Ganga Cleaning Mission - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Technology and Financial Innovation to drive the Ganga Cleaning Mission.

India Water Impact Summit ended in New Delhi on Friday.A working group to develop model Urban River Management Plan.

A range of innovative technology and financial innovations will drive the Ganga cleaning program as was deliberated during the three-day India Water Impact Summit, that concluded on Friday in New Delhi. It was organised by NMCG (National Mission for Clean Ganga) in collaboration with cGanga and saw participations from experts in various fields from 16 countries.
Afforestation, biodiversity, urban river management, data harmonisation, development of water bodies, water valuation and market development, financing in water sector and innovation in sewage and sewerage management were the key topics discussed over three days during the summit.
The three-day summit was inaugurated by Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Road Transport & Highways and Shipping, in the presence of Shri HardeepPuri, Union Urban Development Minister and Dr. Satyapal Singh, Minister of State for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. Hon. Ms Cecilia Dapaah, Minister of Water Resources, Ghana, Shri U.P. Singh, Secretary, MoWR, RD & GR, Shri Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, DG, NMCG, Steven Schonberger, Director of World Bank , Maya Kadosh, Deputy Chief of Mission, Israel, Jasper Wieck, Deputy Chief of Mission, Germany, JozefDrofenik , Ambassador of Slovenia and Dr Vinod Tare, Head cGanga, were among other dignitaries present on the occasion.
During the inaugural session of the summit Shri Nitin Gadkari announced the successful tapping of the SisamauNala of Kanpur, which discharged 140 million litres per day (MLD) of polluted water into the Ganga. The Minister expressed his satisfaction with the work of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) on the occasion.
MrDapaah, Minister of Water Resources, Ghana also committed to take across Africa global innovations that India successfully implements in the NamamiGangeprogramme.
During the valedictory session, Shri UP Singh, Secretary, MoWR, RD & GR expressed his satisfaction on the content of the dialogue. He emphasized on the creation of the working groups as one of the major takeaways from the summit. This will help in converting technology to working models.
Shri Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, DG, NMCG said, ‘The state wise session was a unique deliberation in this version of IWIS. The ministers from the states and senior bureaucrats discussed the various challenges that they face at the ground level implementation of the program. The suggestions from the experts were: engaging state/urban local bodies in policy planning, incorporating local/traditional knowledge in implementation, encouraging zero liquid discharge, decentralization and community driven treatment of sewege& effluents. A working group would also take up development of a model Urban River Management Plan which would be looking comprehensively at the interrelation of river and city and connecting people with the city. Denmark offered their support in this matter.
The technology and innovation deliberations attracted 16 leading companies from 8 nations in a very exciting and a participative workshop. Domains and areas ranged from artificial intelligence, Internet of things, machine learning to latest advancements in waste water recycling, reuse and material recovery, waste-to-energy, satellite imagery with very high resolution, sustainable agricultural practices using soil-less membrane farming, run of the river hydropower units and overall areas of technologies supporting circular economy were presented. The technologies are novel and noble with lower land and energy foot-print, robust but simple electromechanical systems, optimal operations and maintenance costs with low carbon footprint.
NMCG has streamlined the introduction and acceleration of technology deployment through an Environment Technology Verification (ETV) process that allows companies to showcase the success and efficacy of their solutions through a pilot demonstration project. The Government is inviting technology solution providers to apply for the ETV programme in the areas of decentralised waste water and industrial effluent treatment, data and information and ancillary services such as solid waste management, sustainable agriculture and hydropower.
The Summit introduced the Ganga Finance Forum, which brought together a number of national and international financial sector experts highlighted the gaps but equally provided a plethora of innovative financial instruments to support the Ganga Rejuvenation programme. These include issuing of masala bonds in international markets to tap into long-term debt financing through capital markets, using specialist guarantee and credit enhancement instruments, specialist foreign exchange hedging products for those using external commercial borrowing structures. The group unilaterally agreed to create blended finance products such as social impact bonds. An interesting solution to use blockchain and tokens to raise capital has also been suggested by select companies specialising in the fintech sector.
Data and Information asymmetry has been long identified as the crucial missing link. The Summit enabled NMCG to take a leap forward in initiating a number of initiatives in data harmonisation that will develop platforms and approaches to increase interoperability of data being generated by a network of agencies working in the water sector. NMCG invited big data and analytics companies and entrepreneurs to partner with it to develop next generation data solutions that will help policy makers and investors in equal measure with irrefutable and accurate data.
The Summit yet again highlighted the need to value water. It prompted subject matter experts to think of the development of local area water markets so that true economic value of water can be established that will lead to better pricing strategies.
The India Water Impact Summit is an annual event to provide a platform to start a discourse towards understanding water as a natural resource. The efforts may take various forms: data collection, hydrology, e-flows, agriculture, waste water and more.
cGanga:
The Centre for Ganga River Basin Management and Studies is a think-tank and Centre of Excellence to the National Mission for Clean Ganga. In 2015 a consortium of seven Indian Institutes of Technology (Kanpur, Delhi, Madras, Bombay, Kharagpur, Guwahati and Roorkee) created the Ganga River Basin Management Plan. The objective of the plan was to take comprehensive measures for the restoration of the wholesomeness of the Ganga ecosystem and improvement of its ecological health, with due regard to the issue of competing water uses in the river basin. (Source: pib)


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Technology and Financial Innovation to drive the Ganga Cleaning Mission.

Proposed Ganga bill bans ports, jetties - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis

Proposed Ganga bill bans ports, jetties

Centre’s efforts have been on cleaning the river, while neglecting steps to ensure its natural flow: activists

The government has banned the construction of jetties, ports or “permanent hydraulic structures” in the Ganga, unless permitted by the National Ganga Rejuvenation Authority, according to a proposed ‘Ganga Act’

The legislation, formally called the National River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Conservation and Management) Bill, 2018, proposes to create a management structure that will supervise the health of the 2,500-kilometre long Ganga which, the draft Bill defines, as ‘India’s national river.’

In Winter session

The Bill is now being circulated for comments among several Ministries, and proposed to be tabled in Parliament during the Winter session, according to sources.

The Bill lays down a host of restrictions to ensure the “uninterrupted, ecological flow” of the river. Currently, a host of dams in the upper stretches of the river lead to the river’s flow being obstructed, say several activists and researchers, and persistent campaigns — notably led by the late G.D. Agrawal — led to the government finally recognising the need for proposed and existing hydropower projects to change their design plans to ensure minimum flows all through the year.

The legislation looms even as the government is developing a National Waterways Project-1 (River Ganga) from Haldia to Varanasi (1,390 km), with the technical and financial assistance of the World Bank, at an estimated cost of ₹5,369 crore. Food and beverage giant PepsiCo has dispatched 16 containers from Haldia containing packaged food and assorted goods, and — in a ceremony to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — they are expected to dock in Varanasi on November 12, according to a statement from the Union Shipping Ministry. This is the first container movement aboard an inland vessel in independent India, according to that Ministry.

The waterways project involves creating permanent and movable terminals that require dredging and frequent de-silting to ensure that minimum river depths — for the smooth movement of the vessels — are maintained. However, the proposed legislation specifies that “unauthorised” activities that cause “…obstruction or discontinuity of water in the River Ganga…due to engineered diversion of water or stoppage of water…could be liable to a prison term of 3 years or fines upto ₹50 crore, or both.”

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Activists say that while the government’s efforts have been largely on cleaning the Ganga — namely, by installing sewage plants in riverine cities such as Allahabad and Varanasi and Kanpur — but neglecting to take steps to ensure the river’s natural flow is maintained through the stretch. “The government’s draft does not keep the interest of the Ganga as prime focus. The intent seems to be to maintain a flow, whereas we have been insisting on achieving natural flow,” said Mallika Bhanot of the Uttarakhand-based NGO Ganga Ahwaan. The NGO was associated with G.D. Agrawal, and his call for a ban on hydropower projects on the Ganga. (Source: The Hindu)

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Proposed Ganga bill bans ports, jetties

Centre sets ‘minimum river flows’ for the Ganga - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Centre sets ‘minimum river flows’ for the Ganga.

In a first, the Union government has mandated the minimum quantity of water — or ecological flow as it’s called in scientific circles — that various stretches of the Ganga must necessarily have all through the year. The new norms would require hydropower projects located along the river to modify their operations so as to ensure they are in compliance.

In a gazette notification made public on Wednesday, the National Mission for Clean Ganga has laid down the flow specifications. The upper stretches of the Ganga — from its origins in the glaciers and until Haridwar — would have to maintain: 20% of the monthly average flow of the preceding 10-days between November and March, which is the dry season; 25% of the average during the ‘lean season’ of October, April and May; and 30% of monthly average during the monsoon months of June-September.
For the main stem of the Ganga — from Haridwar in Uttarakhand to Unnao, Uttar Pradesh — the notification specifies minimum flow at various barrages: Bhimgoda (Haridwar) must ensure a minimum of 36 cubic metres per second (cumecs) between October-May, and 57 cumecs in the monsoon; and the barrages at Bijnor, Narora and Kanpur must maintain a minimum of 24 cumecs in the non-monsoon months of October-May, and 48 cumecs during the monsoon months of June-September.
Power projects that don’t meet these norms as yet would be given three years to comply and “mini and micro projects” would be exempt from these requirements. The Central Water Commission would be the designated authority to collect relevant data and submit flow monitoring-cum-compliance reports on a quarterly basis to the NMCG, according to the notification.
“From now on, you will never see the Ganga dry ever, anywhere… this is a historic decision made after wide-ranging scientific consultation,” Nitin Gadkari, Union Water Resources Minister, said at a press conference to announce the decision. Mr. Gadkari said while no decision had been reached as yet on whether to disallow big dams on the Ganga, the issue would be deliberated on through “consultations” with legal, water and environmental experts.
The government, however, hasn’t disclosed the existing ecological flows at these stretches while setting the minimum levels, an omission that an expert involved in the framing of these rules attributed to “strategic reasons”. “Flow data isn’t made public by the CWC because it can be used by neighbouring countries to put pressure regarding hydro-electric projects,” said Vinod Tare, Professor, Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and a scientific consultant to the government.
Shashi Shekhar, a former Secretary at the Water Resources Ministry, said while the norms were a good beginning, the targets were too low.
“These numbers would be revised upwards as we better understand river flows but it’s significant that this is now part of river planning,” Mr. Shekhar told The Hindu. “But these numbers don’t necessarily represent what’s needed for the ideal health of the river,” he added. (Source: The Hindu)


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Centre sets ‘minimum river flows’ for the Ganga.