Brijghat (Uttar Pradesh), June 30 (IANS) The government has spent millions of rupees to clean the Ganga, the life line of northern India, but without any result, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Uma Bharati said Thursday.
‘I would not seek explanation for any scam from the prime minister but would definitely seek an account of the sheer wastage of money in the name of Ganga in the last 25 years after the Ganga Action Plan was launched,’ she said, launching her ‘Bring Ganga’s glory back’ campaign at Brijghat town, on the banks of the river, in Ghaziabad district.
She said if the prime minister ignores her demand, she would seek the information through Right to Information (RTI) route.
As the gathering chanted slogans like ‘Ganga Maiya ka apmaan, nahin sahega Hindustan (India will not accept insults to Mother Ganga)’, Uma Bharati said her programme is environmental, not political, although on her call BJP workers were undertaking it.
She said she will undertake a mass contact programme to protect the river.
Claiming that the Ganga today is more polluted than when the Ganga Action Plan was initiated in 1986, Uma Bharati said the state of Uttar Pradesh alone is responsible for over 50 percent of the pollutants entering the river along its entire journey to the sea.
Today there are more than 50 drains carrying raw sewage to the Ganga and Yamuna rivers at Allahabad, she said, adding the Ganga has been polluted to this extent despite the expenditure of over Rs.2,000 crore on the ambitious Ganga Action Plan.
