New Delhi: The Water Resources Information System (WRIS) database developed by Central Water Commission along with Indian Space Research Organisation includes 15,615 numbers of identified rivers/streams in the country. Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in association with the State Pollution Control Boards is monitoring the water quality of rivers in the country on a regular basis. As per a report published by CPCB in February, 2015, 302 polluted river stretches have been identified on 275 rivers based on Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) level in rivers, a key indicator of organic pollution.
Conservation of rivers is an ongoing and collective effort of the Central and State Governments. This Ministry has been supplementing the efforts of the State Governments in abatement of pollution in identified stretches of various rivers under the programmes of National River Conservation Plan (NRCP) and NGRBA (National Ganga River Basin Authority) for implementation of projects on cost sharing basis between Central and State Governments. As per the amendment to the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961, the NGRBA programme along with work of Ganga & its tributaries has been transferred to Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR, RD&GR) from 01.08.2014 onwards. Presently, NRCP (excluding Ganga and its tributaries) has covered polluted stretches of 31 rivers in 75 towns spread over 14 States at a sanctioned cost of Rs. 4517.82 crore. So far, an amount of Rs. 2056.58 crore has been released to various State Governments for implementation of various pollution abatement schemes and a treatment capacity of 2373 million litres per day (mld) has been created under NRCP (excluding Ganga and its tributaries). There is no proposal of this Ministry to bring all rivers under the ambit of NRCP.
This information was given by Minister of State (Independent Charge) in Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Anil Madhav Dave, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
