WORLD BANK TO FUND US$1 BLN TO CLEAN INDIA`S GANGA RIVER

By P.VIJIAN

NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Bernama) -- The World Bank has pledged to lend India US$1
billion to clean up the Ganga River, the country's holiest river but highly
polluted waterways.
The Indian government had estimated it would need a staggering US$4 billion
until 2020 to flush out municipal sewage and industrial toxic, but the initial
phase would take off with a fraction of the actual sum.
"It is a tremendous challenge for us. The Ganga had sustained civilisation
throughout time but is today burdened by expanding production industries and
urban development along its banks and in its basin, with all the pollution this
brings," World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick told reporters after talks with
Indian officials in Delhi.
The funding would be stretched over the next five to seven years.
According to India's Ministry of Environment and Forests, 75 percent of the
pollution in the river was from municipal sewage and another 25 percent from
industrial effluents.
Zoellick said the bank would use its past expertise in rehabilitating major
rivers in the world, such as the Thames in London and Germany's Rhine River,
to help India clean and conserve the 2,500 km Ganga.
The international bank and the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA)
would jointly conduct the project to ensure that by 2020 no untreated municipal
sewage or industrial effluents are discharged into the waters.
The river supports nearly 400 million people in the country.
-- BERNAMA