In December2022, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (co-led by UNEP and FAO), recognized Namami Gange Mission as one of the top 10 World Restoration Flagship initiatives being undertaken across the world. In 2014, the Government of India announced Namami Gange Mission as its Flagship Initiative for the rejuvenation of the Ganga riverbasin, with National Mission of Clean Ganga (NMCG) appointed as its implementing agency.
Ganga riverbasin is the lifeline for approximately 500 million people, and contribute to almost 40% of the country’s GDP. Increasing population and rapid urbanisation, coupled with climate change pose challenges like increased pollution, meeting water demands for drinking water, industrial consumption and irrigation, leading to further pressures on surface and groundwater. Concerted efforts by NMCG have resulted in significantly enhancing treatment capacity of the basin, along with improving water quality and overall health of the river and its ecosystem.
For sustainable management of the riverine ecosystem, NMCG is adopting a holistic& multi-sectoral approach introducing innovative models and international good practices adapted for Indian context. A cyclic River Basin Management approach is being adopted with aspects of governance and clear coordination structure at national, state and district levels that enables periodic pressure-impact assessments and designing appropriate.
Picture you understand Good morning uh we are here for a session online session in fact on the subject peer networking for integrated Rivers Basin planning and management we my my name is DP mathuria I am executive director at National mission for clean Ganga government of India I have a panel here a very distinguished
Panel uh we we shall be deliberating on the subject of River Basin approach in Indian context its adoption and how far this has been successfully applied in the in the in the Indian context I’d like to introduce the panel uh that we have today we have with us director general of national Mission
Supreme Danga and then we also have experts from across the world I have Professor Dr DOTA Ziegler she is faculty from University of applied sciences in a university of koblenz Germany Mr Christian apple is senior advisor and is associated with city of Hamburg with the Department of Water Management
We have lead water specialist from the word by Miss Carmen Batista Miss sharmi Pali who is uh who is from National University of Singapore in fact uh National mission for teen ganga is an authority which has been mandated to look after the issues of pollution abatement of pollution Rejuvenation
Protection and management of river Ganga The Authority has been constituted with overarching role when it comes to managing the river ganga which happens to be a basin of approximately a million square kilometers and the river length itself is about 2500 kilometers uh the mission as and the authority
While implementing the Mandate and the programs for abatement of pollution uh Rejuvenation and protection and management of river Ganga uh has been looking at various paradigms of River Management it has been looking at the issues of management of the pollution issues of uh maintaining continuity of the flows issues of
Research and development issues of involving people’s participation at large and issues of looking at economics for sustainable management of the River Basin during the course it has been able to create a very viable and proactive network with almost all stakeholders across 11 states in the Federation in
The federal system that India has and this networking has led to very very commendable and very reflective actions on the ground uh I’ll I’ll at the onset I’ll uh I’ll invite our first Speaker for the day uh Mr G Ashok Kumar director general of national mission for team ganga he’ll be
Making the presentation of role of the governance structures in strengthening planning implementation and monitoring of river Rejuvenation initiatives over to you uh thank you maturia welcome to all the dignitaries who are present here join the uh the webinar today I thank jiset for joining uh with namami genghi or national mission for
Clean ganga for organizing this program my association with the world water week starts with in 2004 onwards and so I’ve been regularly participating in these programs in the world water week it’s Stockholm so it’s a great privilege to be with all the water experts here and I
Am joined uh here in my office with uh from with by all my senior collection the national mission for clean ganga so PR networking for integrator River Basin planning and management is a topic today and this has essentially captures the spirit of the flagship program of the government of India
Okay this I’ll take a few minutes to give a background on the ganga and and the the program which uh we Implement is the ganga Basin you can see in the uh in the map here it is about uh eight lakh square kilometers or about uh one million square kilometers uh area
And uh we have a distance of uh uh the the river covers the distance about 2525 the mainstream and there are almost uh 40 uh tributaries of this River you can see in the picture uh this is actually uh the Basin for about 40 percent of India’s population and also uh the
Largest growing Delta the sunderbans at the end of the river it suppose also very rich aquatic biodiversity such as Kansas Dolphins orders carriers and turtles Etc um the uh which runs the programmed National Mission uh the uh it’s a program run by the national mission for clean younger
Uh it’s an integrator River Management program uh with the whole seek approach uh Works in pollution abatement improving the ecology and flow and strengthening the river people connect and it is one of the largest and acknowledged River Rejuvenation programs in the world recognized as one of the
Top 10 restoration flagships of the uh by un educative registration led by unity and FAO uh on 13th December 2022 at cop15 Montreal um we have uh five major pillars of this program the average interrupted flow the Nirmal ganga which means the unpolluted flow Gan ganga with
The knowledge flow the Gen ganga the people’s participation and other ganga River people connect the economic link so these are the five major pillars on which the name program rests and um we have taken up so far about 442 projects that cost about 4.5 billion US dollars
Uh some of the accolades which we have received and the achievements of the Mummy ganga the top one as I mentioned is the uh the recognition of by the UN as one of the top 10 equal registration programs of the world we were invited to participate in the U.N Water conference
In 2023 where um we held meetings with about 13 countries and all of them were interested in joining hands with us and we also put forward the concept of a very interesting peer network of River City Alliance I’ll come to that later which would be one of the very unique uh
Net peer Alliance all over the world of the cities on the banks of rivers uh the achievement I said again continuing with the achievements in the Mami engage from 2014 we had many stretches of river ganga main stem under severe pollution we have if you look at
It uh two stretches where on uh category uh one Statue was in category two one switch was on category three and two stretches in category five the category uh one is the uh you can see uh in the uh table right side that it has bod more
Than 30 million gram per liter and Category 5 is the lowest with about three to six milligrams per liter so if you compare that with the 2022 performance we have no uh sectors stretches in category uh both for foreign below we have the uh the category five for two stretches and
Two stretches are come out of the pollution stretches so there is a substantial increase in the uh in the um uh pollution abatement programs in taken up and and the pollution arrangement in the main stem of the river there is improved biodiversity uh because of the better pollution
Abatement works we have increased the Dolphins presence uh recorded about 4 000 abductions recorded from about uh three two or two thousand about two three years back we have also seen increased ranching of uh Indian uh major cups uh the native species of fish fishes which were actually dying out now
We are Branch about 9.3 million of those fishes and they are uh is an indicator of the improved water quality we have also started a lot of biodiversity programs uh uh in the banks on the river and I have taken up lot of activities to ensure that the trees are uh for
Afforestation to take it up antibiota city is maintained so the governance structure and PR networking as I mentioned peer networking is one of the main core areas of our our program uh honorable prime minister always talks about uh meaning all issues related to water should be taken up through the uh
People’s participation and network uh so these are this is the governance structure of the program we have a National Council headed by The Honorable prime minister himself and has 10 Union ministers as members and about five Chief Ministers of the main stem as members uh that’s why it’s a very
Powerful uh networking body at the FX and then we have an import art post with the minister heading it and various ministers Ministry is representing in that we have a Ganga Council headed by the and the activity Council headed by the DG myself and then we have the state
Ganga committees and the district Junior committee so this is a five-time structure which works on the pollution abatement programs um we have um again a a clear a very very core area for of operation for making it this is a concept given by uh honorable prime minister and this is basically a
Self-sustaining model to make the river people connect and formation of fbos if a farmer-based organization is part of one of the pillars this is natural farming we have public participation as uh the as the fifth pillar and institution building as one of the sixth pillar so if you notice the other ganga
Which has the tagline banking on River ganga is is actually promoting a lot of peer networking and and and and cooperation in to to work for the abatement of pollution in the river and systems we have uh the district committees as I mentioned or the last of the tires or
The of the the governor structure This Together committees are the Committees headed by the district magistrates the head of the districts the lowest more level of administration and uh these uh play a major role in working as a decentralized center for administration of the programs and also the bottom-up
Feedback from the ground level on what’s happening in the ground so this is the concept we have taken up was the uh this uh the um committee meetings we started the program in a in a big push on April 22nd uh 2022 and in the last one year we have
Done almost 1 679 meetings off of the governor District committee this is called The Forum meetings monthly mandated minute and monitored meetings and the next important Network which deal is about the universities we have signed Mo with over 65 universities and this the students of this unit is
Joining us uh we’re joining with us in keeping their clean and also to spread awareness we also had meetings at the international level with ivca uh and the UN high-level political Forum uh media in New York we organize monthly virtual seminars igniting young minds with the various students from the universities
Who talk about their experience in in and join us in actions uh another very important Alliance is about the urban river River City Alliance which is an alliance of cities on the banks of the rivers it started off as Alliance of cities on the banks of river ganga and it was so
Popular that we extended it to the other cities on the banks of other cities or other rivers also now we have 143 member cities from India and uh when we went for the conference at the U.N Water conference in New York many countries had shown a lot of interest in joining
The alliance so now we are looking forward for a global University Alliance if possible so this is a very good platform for experience sharing and ideate on various aspects on how to use River as a economic growth engine there are so many things which we can do not
Only as using River as a growth engine also we look at pollution Urban flirting and pollution abatement activities and sharing your best practices as well as a exchange of good ideas and better governance practice Etc so this is going to be a one big major uh Game Changer on the peer learning mode
So this is the framework of the urban River Management plan which we have done for the RCA there are 10 major areas of uh we are defined out of this uh data on environmental issue or sorry six round environmental issues two are known economic issues and two are on the uh
Social uh issues so uh as I mentioned our activity has always been on getting people together getting experts together and also thinking together and working together for the Improvement of the uh the ganga and this River bases over to Martina for the River Basin approach yeah let me let me introduce uh this
Martina uh to the to the audiences this Martina is leading the support uh to ganga Rejuvenation program that uh and that with GIS assistance nmcg is running and she is the she is the lead to uh she is the country lead from German side and she’ll be talking about the River Basin
Management aspect so uh the program thanks a lot um Mr Kumar and summer Korea said briefly so the structure that the structure that was just described in the um from the different levels based in sub Basin District level City level how is that now practically implemented when it comes to River Basin management
Yeah so now as uh as was mentioned so nncg is really taking this River Basin management approach what you see here on the map is the ganga Basin what is in blue are two states of the ganga Basin uttarakhand and uttar Pradesh and uh in yellow you see one of the
Subfacents the ramganga Basin and in red you see uh four districts now uh right now what has what is happening is that on the ganga Basin for the ganga Basin between 2010 and 2015. seven Indian Institutes of technology developed uh ganga river-based management plan a real strategic plan looking at the
Whole sumness of the ganga basin what is done now in the next office building on this plan for the ganga Basin moving down to the sub basins and developing really practical and implementation oriented uh sub Basin plants and then aligning them with District level plans and aligning them with the
Urban River Basin management plants that were just mentioned as part of the urban um of the University Alliance okay okay the approach that is adapted is to pass the approach that is that nmcg is adapting is really based on International experience it’s based on the river-based and management cycle so
Uh that you first you have a real good governance structure that was already described and with all the stakeholders involved on the different levels you develop a patient characterization you uh Define your key water management issues your develop program of measures and like you do a risk analysis you develop a program
Of measures to um to uh to achieve uh to tell these risks yeah and then you monitor you implement you Monitor and then you start this cycle again and basically this cyclic approach of five six years is now applied on all the different levels so to align also
The plans that are made on the basement district and urban level so a practical example for the ram ganga one of the River Basin manage the surface and of the ganga that we are currently working on so here we brought together around 20 stakeholders from National and Basin
Level really involving a lot of people and a lot of expertise in a way as it was not really done so much before it was more project oriented and now it was really all the stakeholders together uh defining the key water management issues the main issues in the in this Basin of
Course pollution is still one of the sources uh it’s fine Source a long point source pollution groundwater River hydrology flood risk encroachment sand mining these were defined by all the stakeholders together as the most important Key Water Management issues to be tackled in this first um in this first stage in this first
Plan the approach that is applied is also the dipsier approach which is also internationally recognized to really do a targeted risk analysis to look at the drivers the pressures and the impact and then assign different risk categories to the different stretches of the river and develop a really very practically
Oriented program of measures and this is really important so that you move from this planning to really implementation and that you move to an implementation that is also integrated with each other and um where where you really integrate this moving well yeah okay so that the sub-facing plan is really also
Integrated with the district plants the districts play a very important role as was already mentioned they are all there were 139 districts just on the main stem of the ganga and implementation in the end happens on the ground so and the districts can take a lot of decision and
They have a lot of they were given a mandate an official mandate in an authority notification by the Indian government so that it’s they play a really important role and now it’s important to bring the district boundaries together with the hydrological boundaries of the Basin yeah and this is why these Riverbend
Staff Asian plans are very much aligned with the district plans so all the districts have to do these plans it’s mandatory for them to do it but it was not so clear on how to do it so for that then we have developed um a framework together with the
Districts and with nmcg we have developed a framework um on what these District ganga plants should look like and we have now started to work on in four districts together with WWF and again peer networking and cooperation and bringing all stakeholders together where we have now done
Um the framework and Analysis in the situations we have now four District ganga plans that are ready as an example and just next week the trainings on River Basin management will start so this is where you see the how the structure is practically implemented and how nmcg is really now moving forward
Into this river-basing management approaches uh thank you Martin I just uh the last slide of the stream uh so my mommy uh the namamania has really as I said moved from uh an engineering countries to people’s participation programs so all the programs are based on a decentralized uh approach uh uh
Planning from uh bottom-up farmers and that exactly is what the river based management planning also the uh the expertise uh from the GI said on in the uh mode of management this approach is taken up in a big way and we’re also supporting uh the activities of gisr
With the uh with the local officials to ensure that the proper planning is done so that they can implementation is much more coordinated and in this results so to that we have uh also started strengthening the institutions um to for getting improved planning and coordination we are also setting up a
National based base sorry River Basin management unit Within nmcg for planning and implementation of the rvm’s teams and also we are looking for cooperating expertise experts from the international Arena who have done Works in this in the same sector particularly in the climate change scenarios and adaptations and
Mitigation sectors we are wanting them to be a part of our Pros planning process and the expertise can guide us in ensuring that the plans prepared uh grounded well and that it will show good results thank you for the patient hearing so we are looking forward for uh
A lot of inputs from the experts in this group so that this could be one of a very very good model for the entire world program to follow we are now taking it up to the other rivers in the country namami ganga is almost clean so we are taking the lessons learned from
Ganga to the other reverse in the in the country we hope that this can be used for other rivers in the world that’s what we’re looking for thank you thank you director General Sir and thank you Miss Martina uh in fact River Basin management and integration of various aspects of the
Management is very very interesting uh subject it has been a very exhaustive and the excellent presentation uh we now enter into the next phasal session which involves interactive discussions with our experts will be largely discussing on adoption of the River Basin management approach the Indian context uh the the format is
That there are certain questions and we’ll go as per the time which is available I’ll be I’ll be I’ll be requesting all the experts to please please keep the time in mind uh in fact my my first question uh I’m posing it to uh Professor Dr zigla
Uh in fact if you look at the ganga Basin it happens to be quite a large Basin and we have in fact devised a system of having national state and District level authorities who shall be looking at the plans at various levels and shall be coordinating for implementation of those plans however
Uh I’ll I’ll ask that in your opinion and based on your experience with the problems University how can different countries come together for an effective cooperation for Trans boundary River governance a Ganga happens to be a trans-boundary river so please reflect uh on this this this observation
Okay thank you Mr mathuria for this question and thank you especially for the interesting input by Mr Kuma and Martina Burkhart on the river ganga and what has been achieved in the past decade here in an impressive way yeah I think the transboundary corporation and river basins is um yeah crucial and
Essential to solve water issues and this is actually the major reason why countries come together to solve these problems because they have these problems water doesn’t know any boundaries in its basins and even if we have a lot of administrative boundaries our water basins don’t have them and
When we have a problem in the upstream and we don’t treat our waste water or we build a lot of dams to transport ships and to um yield hydropower this will have an impact in the whole Basin also on the other countries and downstream countries also can have an impact on stream
Countries as we see here at the river Rhine and I’m sure you see that also at the ganga River when there’s a lot of construction going on to prevent floods storm water floods from the coast to enter the River Basin this will have an impact on fish migration for example so
Here in the Rhine River actually the major challenges increased and always inspired transnational and transboundary cooperation two very famous examples where one was the sandal accident a big industrial chemical pollution from a from a big fire in the 80s 1980s when a lot of of higher water distinguishing
Water with chemicals entered the river Rhine and increased really increased an ecological damage a lot of fish were dying and also drinking water quality was endangered because all the cities along the Rhine depend on rain water for their drinking water not only in Germany but also in the Netherlands and in the
Rhine River Basin we have about 60 million people living there this is less than a ten than in the ganga River Basin but I think also at the ganga base and you will have more and more challenges to solve yeah it’s not with the wastewater treatment plants and
Decreasing the body that your challenges are solved there will be more challenges to come and with your interdisciplinary approach I think you’re on the best way to solve them the second big issue was the floods in the 1990s which were really severe and caused extreme damages
And then a big big International yeah or a lot of talks were held to coordinate flood prevention measures and flood risk management measures including to restore floodplains and to improve warning times alert times and things like that and I’m sure with the river Ryan this is not the end as Mr
Eber will also confirm we are now confronted with climate change impacts with droughts and low water tables in summer times and also with floods and different water regimes in the future also from decreased snow melts decreased glaciers so there will be a lot of challenges ahead of us yeah so also the
Other topic is micropollutants they also have to be dealt with and our wastewater treatment plants now have to improve their phosphorus removal and their micro pollutant removal yeah so finally it’s this year we have problems in river basins with our rivers that connect us in across Nations across States across
District boundaries and also across the different sectors working together in a River Basin and the rivers call us to cooperate to solve these issues and I think since we all depend on water for our lives we are called to cooperate to solve these issues also in the future
And I think the River Basin management cycle is a really valid approach to go forward to increase this dialogue across the different subjects expertises and to find the appropriate basin-oriented Solutions yeah thank you thank you professor and it was in fact it’s true that the rivers of such a such
A huge you know catchment areas does have a lot of challenges both in terms of quality and quantity as well and similar kind of challenges we also face and the the the the peer learning does offer a lot of a lot of positive Traction in handling
Those kind of uh those kind of issues I’ll come to Mr Christian able uh uh Mr Christian has been involved in uh early stages of implementing European Union water framework directives in Germany and in particular for ab River and he has a number of years of experience working with rbos for everywhere committee
I like to uh I like to understand from you that based on your experience from your work in Germany and in particular in in the context of Ryan and Deb River can you share your opinion on Governors governance structure that was put in place for these rivers and how they have
Contributed towards their rejuvenation thank you very much and thank you for inviting me this morning to this table as you know Germany is a federal state it’s consisting of 16 countries who are responsible of the management of the Water Resources and it’s very similar to the state
Organization could be seen as similar to India with this Federal organizational structure and all the competence of managing surfacing ground Waters relies with the countries and it’s embedded into the federal water law and we and every Province or country has an own water law its own water law unfortunately and that
Is a Pity rivers and ground Waters do not respect administrative borders they’ve only flow according the the gravity the gravity and that’s really a Pity since 2000 the water framework directive was introduced which basically urges uh the their members to manage their rivers and surface waters in River Basin oriented approaches formulating
River-based management plans and that was quite a challenge for for Germany before Germany reunited in 1990 the urban River was the most polluted stream in in Europe and there was hardly any possibility to to restore the River due to the high pollution load coming from the East it
Was a real with reunification in 1990 the the international commission for the urban River was founded this is a transnational organization which enhances the cooperation between the Czech Republic and Germany and river-based management issues and furthermore we have created River Basin management committees in which all the states for the countries
In the corresponding catchment areas are members and that is done in the concept of implementing and agree on common goals of the River Basin management harmonize the implementation and the measures SketchUp a program of measures an agreed program of measures between the involved States evaluating also the the the the success
And what is very important we have aspects of the River Basin commissions and distributed functioning functionalities between decision level level and working level the River Basin commission structures in general be it the Rhine or the elbow is consists of a consists of a decision level that is the
Ministerial level and the working group level where we where we join as experts from each state to address surface groundwater floods and haveries as consultants to the decision takers in the commission we think that with a sound river-based commission structure this is the adequate instrument administratively to react or to organize
The process of River Basin management within within the Basin yeah and what is important the implementation of the program of measures remains with the countries or the districts if you like or with your provinces because the programs of measures have to be financed by each country in the river-based
Management itself but the framework of the program of measures is agreed commonly In this River Basin management commissions and it is a story of success I can tell you that for instance the elaboration of the program of measures on the Rhine and the element of the program of measures in river-based management
The the blueprint of the Rhine commission was taken somehow as an element for the river for the water framework directive which came into force in the year 2000 so the the the the the River Basin management plan basically its core is organized within the program of management at the River
Basin Management’s commission structure is from my point of view the key to success to organize the process but also to delegate the the the responsibilities in a federal state keep that in mind it is participating in the river-based management committee does not stepping down from your competences but to create
Synergies I feel that is important message I would like to leave and it is an adequate structure to bundle all the knowledge of the experts within the River Basin management area over all the catchment area and you haven’t a continuous process of moderation and communication and of the River Basin management
Committees furthermore have a Secretariat which is paid by their members in order to assist the organization of the process of of re of the of reporting and of data Gathering and to assist the experts group that’s from my part as I can tell you this was
What we what what we applied and was quite successful I think yeah I’m myself yeah thank you Mr Christian Nebel for uh for for informing us that uh the program of measures in fact if I if I draw similarity between what you have told and what we are doing in ganga Basin we
Do have a we do have a system wherein we constituted authorities at various levels I have set as director General has also told that at National level State and District level we’re working that each each level there should be a plan and then those program of media should be implemented and implementable
At those levels and I’m sure we brought a lot of similarities between those these two aspects I’ll now move to our uh you know this Carmen Rosa Batista from World Bank she is she is she has her extensive experience in subjects of water and sanitation service delivery across various continents and
Countries for example U.S Latin America African South Asia uh I like man to reflect uh well I’d like you to look critically and based on your work experience of working internationally that how the governor structures which have been put in place for rejuvenating the river ganga uh are
They are they sufficient or globally there is something else to be put in and do you feel that networking among peers that we have been into it has attained a critical mass to bring the results for which this Authority has been you know visualized uh over to you man
Thank you and thank you Mr mathuria for that introduction and thank you also for the invitation to participate um in this panel um so let me just start by saying that as we saw from the presentation from Mr Kumar nmcg has made impressive strikes in recent years thanks to his current
Governance structure and legal framework this has provided autonomy for decision making financial resources and coordination mechanisms between central and state government and this actually has allowed nsmg to adopt several Innovation mechanisms such as the hand PPP model and the one ct-1 operation scheme that has been um successful in managing domestic Wastewater
And as nmcg Consolidated Surfers to reduce pollution and also works towards these other emission objectives which includes improving ecological flow and strengthening the connection between people and the river I think it becomes increasingly important to evolve into a let’s say a river Authority or a River Basin organization and this would require
Um as we heard a concerted effort to scale up the river management and planning initiatives that you’re doing and also perhaps strengthen the current governing structures to accelerate this and with that spirit in mind I would like to share three good practices based on the World Bank experience in River
Restoration programs mainly in the Bogota River environmental restoration and flood control program in Colombia and also taken from the mekon integrated Water Resources management and the Jackson River protection and ecological restoration program in China so uh basically uh three main aspects I would like to mention one is to assess the
Um to basically um first I would say is to improve the or strengthen the knowledge base uh aspects with technical analytical studies to assess the river water balance to investigate the environmental flow options are not aligned with Dynamic gang admission and to also develop forecasting models that consider how to manage uncertainty in
Particularly related to climate change and Rapid pollution growth I these tools will support networking among peers inform also River Basin plants and also support nmcg and other stakeholders in their decision making process second I would say to build a solid data management system with an interface for water quality and flow monitoring to
Support its regulatory functions and also to communicate the status of River Health to the public some of this work is already on the way for instance with the installation a real a real-time monitoring water quality stations to measure the impact of wastewater treatment plants and also monitor the water um
Water quality and critical stretches of the river and third um we have Martina has already talked about the River Basin management and planning efforts so I would say to um to scale up those efforts building on this work supported by GIC um and for you to do this
Um there will be a need to strengthen the government instructors that you have at the moment and I’m happy to see that you have us next steps these dedicated unit to actually um work on River Basin management and plan and planning not only at the national level I understand that it will
Also be representation at the state level to ensure this coordination that you already have with the infrastructure Investments um this unit I think will be really valuable in coordinating roles with various Nation a national agencies that also work in the ganga Basin we have seen this in several countries the need
That to have this uh interagency coordination platform to do that in particular when there’s competing perhaps mandates in addition I think it is important that this government instructor supports the creation of South Basin River committees which is perhaps where you were talking about these District plans to ensure stakeholder participation from local
Communities ngos and private sectors so that there’s a needs and perspective are taking into account and here um I’m really happy to see the River City Alliance in the and the urban management plan which is bringing different stakeholders in putting together a plan with a holistic view so
This type of government structure that your working towers and accompanies with River planning allows for a more holistic approach to River Management um for instance to help with effective water allocation among sectors and also application of water use efficiency for agriculture for instance other the reduction of water related conflicts
And and also the implementation of ecosystems restoration to ensure the long-term health of the river and its habitat so in closing um nmcg has the political support the legal Authority and they know how to improve his current government instructor to support and accelerate the river planning and management in a participatory participatory and
Sustainable Manner and here at the World Bank we are really excited and honored to support some of these initiatives on the Second National ganga River Basin thank you very much thank you Miss Carmen thank you for elaborating on uh many final points they will they will be quite helpful I am
Sure and they will find mention in our recommendations as well uh we are in fact planning some short of the time and uh time in mind I’ll directly come to miss sharmi palette she’s a public sector professional and has also been involved in various other Flagship programs in India for example
For example as well I shot me I like you to briefly dwell upon your experience as to what do you think how can this local level stakeholder partnership can be better engaged in Basin governance and uh what role do you ascribe to these institutions uh you can be brief while
Being being you know while discussing this issue shut me yeah hello so uh so coming directly to the question local level stakeholder engagement it’s very important and must take uh center stage in all ways in governance strategies and now the simple question would be why would that be the case and that is
Because engaging them would facilitate shared decision making identify common goals clearly bring out expectations of all different groups in you know uh facility the dialogue sharing process and enhances accountability to Mall so as you mentioned I have had a very I had the opportunity to work with namami
Gangi for two years and I can share my experiences how and how this was carried out so the first example would be the like there are some very uh passionate volunteer groups which are there on field like the ganga praharis and Etc and they are not just supporting the
Program by praising public awareness but are also you know for instance the ganga praharis are engaged in parting livelihood training skills now what is important for us to understand here it’s just not that these groups are helping the program achieved the mission goals or the you know carry out day to day
Activities but it will actually help in you know mobilize the communities and maintain the momentum long after the program finally exists the field secondly what we tend what generally tends to happen is that these policies are mostly designed at the central level and often you know and
What usually happens is uh local ngos and csos are engaged you know by through various means voluntarily or formal agreements through mous Etc and this actually gives a platform for all the voices and concerns to be heard or addressed and need based activities to be carried out rather than one generic
Size that fits all thought I think would be the children in youth which are the different another side which is very important especially in a case like India which is a Young Nation and you know because our all our efforts are being not just for sustainably managing existing resources
But also leaving a secure future for them so they do have a right for a clean River with Advocate fluent driving ecosystem so I think these are very important and uh I hope this answers the question you know with the positive of time well thank you thank you sharmi in fact
This definitely answers the question local stakeholders are very very important they shall be eyes and ears to what our activities and what we are doing and whatever we do uh ultimate you know acceptability has to come from these stakeholders only uh the people in the intellect well uh this this has been
Very very interesting uh um and this in fact has post few other questions for example making the river based in resilient against climate change making the business Basin resilient against disasters which you often see so I’ll again come to director General National Mission Supreme ganga
Uh so uh what do you think nmcg is ensuring uh while ensuring an effective multi-stakeholder for involvement and engagement particularly in you know pollution abatement issues it has been quite successful but has this engagement been really successful and really you know impactful while handling very very sensitive issues like making River Basin
Resilient against climate change as well as against disasters what do you sir a very important question because all the water sector is probably has a best manifestation of of climate change because that directly can be shown we have seen the uh devastating floods which is happening in many parts of the
Country now so um and and there are issue times when uh there are uh drought severe droughts affecting and there is no water flowing in many other rivers so one of the thing which we have taken up is uh is Rejuvenation smaller reverse with the help of communities so pulling
Up resources from various Departments of the on various schemes of the government of India we are actually working on a Rejuvenation smaller Rivers springshot management Etc and second is uh we’re also looking at uh the uh for better flood prediction models so with the CWC Etc so that
People can be properly forward and also we using the support from the ngt ETC we are looking at removing the encroachments on the Riverbanks and protective protection of flood floodplains and we have also taken up a lot of afforestation activities so that the silks which actually causes a
Lot of floods because of the bank River Bank racing in uh level that can be contained so afforestation has been taken up in a big way and um at the lower down below at the sundarban area mangroves Etc one very very good protection for uh or abatement
Of various climate changes issues so a lot of activities are being taken up and all are taken up with the help of people uh involvement of people and Community the success of namami Ganga had been its very close interaction with the people and involvement of people and we look
Forward for more and more involvement the people for both what uh from from to push the the various aspects of the program top downwards as well as to get feedback from bottom-up from the people down down below with the expert group supporting us in giving the right messages to the people thank you
This has been a very very important concern and often being flagged a number of initiatives have been launched to uh to to to create an oversight when it comes to issues like impact of climate change and uh looking at the issues of disasters which quite often happen uh
And I believe that no excise is complete without involving the stakeholders we must be having a lot of audience and I must be having few questions so we can spend a minute or so for the questions in the chat box can you open the chat box any questions otherwise I don’t see any
Message in chat box okay so we don’t have any questions uh the the subject of uh if there are no questions I would make a couple of remarks to climate change and how we tackle this issue in Germany we have the Rhine River and the Edward River and they are affected differently
By climate change effects the Rhine is nourished by the office by the matching snow in the apps it’s Rich it’s it’s it’s every year we see less snow falling in the Alps and are very concerned of it then the because the flow of the Rhine is diminished and on the Aber River we
See sea level rising effects and those are the the two issues we address within our River Basin committees as well and we have introduced the aspect of climate change as River manage River base as a as a as a topic for river-based management uh thank you Mr nation and we are in
Fact at the end of this session I’ll I’ll now like to hand it over to miss Martina book who is heading the program she has a program with nmcg on strengthening of your education for the closing remarks as well as uh closing the session what would you
Yeah thanks a lot uh for all the the contributions like always time is running short we all think that we want to have so much time to discussion and then all of a sudden the hour is over so a quick points that were made in this discussion I mean reverse that was
That’s the basis they don’t know boundaries they all call us to cooperate cross-borders um this is about across country borders about across state borders across District borders that cooperation is needed and for that to all to have a clear governance structure where also you have clear mandate to the different
Organizations whether this is as was described in the European framework directed or whether the legal structure that nmcg has uh as per as per the Indian government so that you need these kind of structures to really be able to bring the all the actors together this is absolutely crucial that’s one thing
That we’ve really realized and uh so to agree on certain topics on issues there are a lot of problems we all are facing from pollution accidents and micro pollutants but then the overall uh topic of uh climate change and flooding and drop and all the other aspects that are caused by this
So you need a clear legal uh framework and a river commissions River Basin commissions organizations that are overall responsible are really needed but then it’s absolutely crucial to involve all the different levels uh States districts and also delegate you agree on the measures but then you delegate also the implementation and
Without the public uh participation on the ground without having all the people living in along the rivers on board then things are not able to be done I think this is what’s one thing that we all really need so with that I thank all the participants of today’s thing of uh I
Think again uh from the University of applied science in Copelands I uh I think the Christian Abel from the city of Hamburg and uh charmi palette and uh of course of you and thanks for all the participants for listening to uh to today’s session and of course thanks a
Lot for to DG director General NFC James for implementing this session Mr maturia for uh for the moderation and uh let me also thank on behalf of the of the German government for this really wonderful cooperation that we have with nmcg for a long time already on this
River Basin management it’s really a pleasure to work with this organization and to work with all the people working in here so thanks a lot for this and uh wishing you all an interesting day and again a lot of interesting sessions at the Stockholm water week thanks thank you very much
Thank you thank you