Lokmat News Network
Aurangabad, Oct 4:
Here is good news for the citizens as the union Government has selected Aurangabad (Tourism Capital) and Pune (Cultural Capital) cities from Maharashtra under its ambitious Namami Gange project, said the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) administrator A K Pandey, on Monday. The civic administration will soon be submitting a detailed project report (DPR) valuing Rs 50 crore, he mentioned.
The union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) through a nodal agency undertook the National Mission Clean Ganga (NMCG) to sensitise the cities about the important river. An alliance of River Cities has been formed to develop interaction and share best practices to make the rivers through dialogues and active partnerships. The alliance is comprised of the cities that are situated in the Ganga basin. However, seven non-Ganga cities across India, have also been included in the alliance based on their population, river length and other criteria.
Aurangabad's inclusion
The AMC has undertaken the Kham River rejuvenation project as a part of the state government's 'Majhi Vasundhara' campaign from January 2021. For the past 10 months, it is deepening the river bed, desilting, pitching, developing green cover through tree plantation, painting walls, developing a leisure garden at the river bed site etc. Apart from this, it had set up several sewage treatment plants of various capacities under Sewage Upgradation and Development Programme (SUDP) and is treating a quantity of 210 MLD of sewage water daily through them. Hence, it is being assumed that the cognizance of all these efforts led to the city's selection in the Namami Gange project.
Weightage to Kham-Sukhana rivers in DP plan
" A special weightage will be given to Kham River and Sukhana River in the city development plan. Our focus will be on developing the beds of these two rivers in the future. The encroachments on the edge of these rivers will also be removed. Prior to it, we will be marking Blue Line and Red Line as an alert for those staying around them. Besides, we will spend Rs 15 crore (granted to us under 15th Finance Commission) on completing the SUDP's pending sewage linking works," stressed Pandey while speaking to the media persons.