Ganga river basin environment management plan: interim report

This is the interim “Ganga River Basin Environment Management Plan”. The thrust of
this Plan is to relate the diverse environmental degradations occurring in the basin with
their causal factors, and thereby frame a roadmap for redeeming National River Ganga
Basin’s Environment. The task involved different thematic groups of experts from 7 IITs
and other premier organizations identifying different causal factors and assessing their
impacts on the basin to synthesize the findings and recommendations in fulfillment of
the important missions identified in the Plan. This report covers the main issues of
concern and recommends corrective measures. While major changes in the final Plan
are note foreseen, our studies have not achieved closure on all aspects; hence there
could be additional actionable recommendations in the final Plan.
The progress in preparing this Plan was affected by several factors. On the one hand, coordination between experts working in different institutions was not always speedy. On
the other hand, the progress depended on obtaining relevant primary data from nodal
government agencies, which was often tardy and circuitous. This also affected the timely
co-ordination between related thematic groups. It is hoped that data availability in
future will become simpler and faster.