GAP still remains a non-starter

allahabad: all the tall claims to protect the river ganga from pollution by the central government in its gazette (1985, part i, section 1) have fallen flat with the recent closure of the regional offices national river conservation directorate, (nrcd) here and at kolkata by undersecretary asha makhijani, ministry of environment and forests. it is worth mentioning here that the central government had envisaged a massive multi-crore project in 1985 to make ganga pollution free.however, the river remains polluted but crores of rupees sanctioned for the purpose has been siphoned off. in reply to a protest letter, the minister for environment and forests t r balu states: the regional offices of the nrcd at allahabad and kolkata were set up for liasoning with the government of uttar pradesh, bihar and west bengal in respect of projects under the ganga action plan phase i which was completed in march 2000. it further states that the directorate has since expanded its activities to 18 states and 27 rivers and the monitoring work in respect of all the schemes / projects now being done from the headquarters in new delhi. it has accordingly been decided to close the regional offices at allahabad and kolkatta. in fact, the expenditure reforms commission set up by government of india has also recommended so. however, sources from the regional offices of ganga action plan and nrcd revealed that the money amounting to millions of rupees has been siphoned off and misused and nothing concrete to clean the ganga has virtually been done. ironically, there are lots of discrepancies in government's statement and action. the gazette of india (1985), which exclu sively laid stress on the purification of ganga, held, the river ganga is the lifeline of million of people. it is closely inter woven with our culture and tradition, and the health and well- being of a large population are closely bound with its water quality. it further expressed concern over the increasing pollu tion of the river saying that over the years, the river has been indiscriminately polluted and misused. the recent closure of the regional office of nrcd has caused a widespread resentment among the citizens of the city. it is also worth mentioning that one by one all the major offices of central government including nhai and iwwai are being either shifted or closed down. in his letter to the prime minister, the social activist anand mohan has strongly condemned the move to close down the nrcd office at allahabad and kolkata.