Recently, NDA Government has provided additional capital of Rs 80 thousand crore to the public sector banks in order to enable them to overcome the losses incurred by them due to corruption. But the Government does not have Rs 8,000 crore to rejuvenate the Ganga.
In manifesto of 2014 of the NDA, the Government had said that it is committed to ensure “continuous flow of Ganga.” (See Government’s manifesto here – Page 6).
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh stopped three under-construction hydropower projects that obstructed the continuous flow of the Bhagirathi, a tributary of the Ganga, namely Bhaironghati, Maneri Bhali – 1 and Loharinagpala, after the hunger strike of Sanand Swami (Dr.G.D. Agarwal, former professor, IIT Kanpur). The Government enterprise NTPC had spent about six hundred crores on Loharinagpala. The allegedly “secularist” Congress Party directed NTPC to bear a hit of Rs 600 crore rupees to ensure continuous flow of Ganga.
The NDA Government led by Prime Minister Modi came to power in 2014. The Vishnu Prayag hydroelectric project was commissioned earlier and was running at the time of Mr. Modi coming to power. The Srinagar hydroelectric project was under construction in 2014 and was commission after Mr. Modi came to power. The Construction of Vishnugad-Pipalkoti project started in 2014 after Mr. Modi came to power. The NDA led by Mr. Modi took no steps to stop the construction of Srinagar and Vishnugad Pipalkotti projects despite its commitment to ensure continuous flow of Ganga.
Indeed that these three projects have got the environmental approvals and they have not made any mistakes in legal terms. However, this was also the situation of Lohrinagpala. But Dr. Manmohan Singh took the bold step to stop its construction.
Now, Mr. Modi can nationalize these three projects and give proper compensation to the Companies and remove Vishnu Prayag and Srinagar projects and stop the construction of Vishnugad Pipalkoti project. According to our estimate, the cost of Srinagar project is about Rs 4 thousand crore, the cost of the Pipalkoti project at present is about Rs 2 thousand crore and the cost of Vishnuprayag is about Rs 500 crore. Considering other expenditures to be Rs 1500 crores, the cost of removal of these 3 projects would come to about Rs 8 thousand crore. If Dr. Manmohan Singh could direct the Government to take a hit of Rs 600 crores in stopping Loharinagpala, Mr. Modi can direct the Government to take a hit of Rs 8,000 crores to remove these 3 projects to establish continuous flow of Ganga as committed by NDA in its manifesto.
This is not the end of the story. News is that the NDA Government will endeavor to resume the projects that were stopped by Dr. Manmohan Singh. The NDA Government wants to kill the continuous flow of the Ganga which was established by Dr. Manmohan Singh. We request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to please spend Rs 8000 crore for the continuous flow of Ganga, if he can provide Rs 80,000 crores to cover up the losses incurred by the Public Sector Banks due to corruption.
