Today an important work started in the direction of making the country rich in water resources. There will be challenges ahead, but if the work on basin management in the country continues at the same pace and progress, then the dream of an India rich in water resources will be fulfilled soon. Not only this, other countries of the world will look forward to guidance from India on river basin management. This statement was made by Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union Minister of Jal Shakti, at the function for signing the agreement between 12 technical education institutions for academic and research collaboration towards basin management of 6 rivers.  This agreement has been made between Ministry of Jal Shakti and academic institutions under the National River Conservation Plan. Through this project, the responsibility of research, monitoring and gathering technical knowledge required for the condition assessment and management plan in basin management of Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Cauveri, Narmada and Periyar has been given to 12 institutions (different IIT, NIT and NEERI).

The MoA was signed by Shri  G. Ashok Kumar, Project Director on behalf of NRCD  and the Directors of the consortium institutes and IIT Kanpur.  The Directors of all institutions participating in this project and office-bearers of National Mission for Clean Ganga and Ministry of Jal Shakti were present at the function held in the auditorium of the Dr. Ambedakar International Centre, New Delhi.

While praising the work of cGanga (Centre for Ganga Basin Management and Studies), run under the leadership of IIT Kanpur, the chief guest of the event Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of Jal Shakti, quoted the Upanishadic sutra 'Ekoham Bahusyam'. He said that following the same philosophy of expanding one into many, CGanga has tried to make new centres by connecting academic institutions in the basin management of 6 rivers.  Just as cGanga has contributed to the strengthening of the technical side of basin management of the Ganga river, it is hoped that these academic institutions will strengthen the technical side of basin management of rivers in the east, west, centre and south.

During his address, he said that many efforts were made in the past to clean the river Ganga, but when it was given the form of a mission under the leadership of Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and academic knowledge was combined with administrative methods, then we got better results. Due to better planning and proper implementation, today UNESCO has included Namami Gange Mission among the ten best conservation and revitalization campaigns in the world. In order to make river conservation a mass movement with the aim of maintaining the purity and uninterrupted flow of Ganga, Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi linked it to livelihood and gave the principle of Arth Ganga and on his initiative the river conservation and revitalization scheme was made knowledge based.  In this way, research and scientific documentation in the field of river science got a boost in the country and another pillar in the form of Gyan Ganga joined this campaign.

We have gained a lot of experience during Ganga Basin Management, which should be used in planning the basin management of these six rivers. He also stressed the need to enhance inter-state cooperation and coordination in river related matters.

The function was also addressed by Ms. Debashree Mukherjee, secretary of Ministry of Jal Shakti and Sri G. Ashok Kumar, Director General of National Mission for Clean Ganga. Dr. Vinod Tare, founder director of CGanga, gave a summary of the condition assessment and management plan of six rivers.

The following institutions got the responsibility:

Narmada Basin Management — IIT Indore and IIT Gandhinagar

Godavari Basin Management — IIT Hyderabad and NEERI Nagpur

Mahanadi Basin Management — IIT Raipur and IIT Rourkela

Krishna Basin Management — NIT Warangal and NIT Surathkal

Cauvery Basin Management — IISc Bangalore and NIT Trichy

Periyar Basin Management — IIT Palakkad and NIT Calicut

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Anubhav Singh