For a country like India where rivers are considered sacred, designating holy rivers Ganga and Yamuna as the living entities was surely a historic move. After Uttarakhand High Court in March 2017, ruled Ganga, Yamuna as the living entities, they are now being treated with the same respect and dignity that is accorded to human beings and are meant to be hygienic. In spite of the continuous efforts to make the river pollution-free, we have failed to do so.
But finally, the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation has come up with a separate army battalion to clean and secure Ganga. The ministry has decided to raise one Composite Ecological Task Force (CETF) battalion Territorial Army for National Mission for Clean Ganga.
According to official documents, accessed through the National Mission for clean Ganga website, the government has already allocated Rs 167 Crores for this.
The army battalion will clean Ganga will be responsible for planting a tree and checking soil erosions. They will manage public awareness campaigns while assisting the government in enforcing pollution control measures.
They will also keep a tab on the river pollution levels and also support local civil administration and police in manging the Ghats.
Till now crores of rupees have been pumped to clean the river, but much of those efforts have been washed away in vain.
Various ruling governments have promised to clean the river, but all of them have failed so far. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has marked cleaning of Ganga as one of the top priorities in his five-year term program. Several measures have been taken since then to make Ganga pollution free.
Earlier, a regular battalion of Territorial Army was raised for deployment of the Namami Gange programme, however, that was de-commissioned in February 2017.