A delegation under the leadership of Dr. (Mrs.) Barbara Hendricks, Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Federal Republic of Germany today met Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Uma Bharti here in New Delhi. The focus of talks was works related with Ganga Rejuvenation and its cleaning. Welcoming the delegation the Sushri Uma Bharti said work has to be done with regard to access and analysis of the feasibility and prospects for and Indo-German co-operation for Ganga Rejuvenation. She informed that a Ganga scoping mission was taken up in October last following an approval from the Ministry of External Affairs. As per the report there may be a potential co-operation on the lines of Indo-German Energy forum. It could be : River basin planning, institutional setting and researches etc. in addition, technical co-operation on selected issues like support to river rejuvenation strategies, hot spot definition, prioritization, realistic time frame, basin wide monitoring & evaluation, setting of standards, pollution, Ganga Knowledge Centre, Research etc, can be worked out. There could also be financial co-operation on selected issues as innovative financing models for industrial and urban pollution, assistance to manage funds, selected public and or private investment funds, the Minister said.
The German delegation said they are willing to assists in Ganga Rejuvenation in view of their success in the rejuvenation of Rhine and Denube rivers which involves multi-country and multi-State collaboration. The challenges of managing pollution due to sewage and the industrial effluents have been handled in these efforts which are also critical in the Ganga cleanup programme. Work is already under way on environmental and urban management issues and tool kits as well as other material for standardization and capacity building has also been developed. It was also mentioned during the meeting that recently a round table on scoping mission report has been conducted. The German government has committed 3 million Euro to support Ganga Rejuvenation during Indo-German negotiations. An appraisal is expected during March 2015 to formulate concrete projects for initial assistance.