Ganga River Basin Authority would be set up as an empowered planning, implementing and monitoring authority for the river as declared by the Prime Minister. The proposed Authority would be chaired by the Prime Minister and would have as its members, the chief ministers of the states through which the Ganga flows.

This news will indeed gladden the hearts of millions of people in this country because the sacred river has a special place in the hearts and minds of all the Indians. The Prime Minister emphasised that this emotional link needs to be recognised and the country should set up a model for river cleaning through new institutional mechanism. It seems that the government finally recognised that there is a need to replace the current piecemeal efforts taken up in a fragmented manner in select cities with an integrated approach that sees the river as an ecological entity and addresses issues of quantity in terms of water flows along with issues of quality.

The details of the Authority to be vested with appropriate powers would be worked out in consultation with the state governments and the Central ministries. The unit of planning should be the river basin and action related to pollution abatement, sustainable use of water and flood management should be integrated. The proposed Authority will promote inter sectoral coordination for comprehensive planning for the river. Various agencies working on different aspects of river conservation and pollution management would be brought together under this proposed Authority.

Prime Minister also directed that detailed final proposals may be prepared within two months after necessary wide ranging consultations. It was also recognised that the spirit of the Ganga Action Plan as conceived in 1985 by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of making the cleaning for the Ganga River a people’s movement should be restored.