Cabinet approves 'Namami Gange' programme

New Delhi, May 13: The union cabinet on Wednesday approved the flagship "Namami Gange" programme, which attempts to integrate the efforts to clean up and protect the Ganga river in a comprehensive manner. "The programme has a budget outlay of Rs.20,000 crore for the next 5 years. This is a significant four-fold increase over the expenditure in the past 30 years," an official statement issued here said. Marking a major shift in implementation, the government is focusing on involving people living on the banks of the river to attain sustainable results. Drawing from the lessons learnt from previous efforts, the programme also focuses on involving the states and grassroots level institutions such as urban local bodies and panchayati raj institutions in implementation, it added. The statement pointed out that in order to ramp up progress, the Centre will now take over 100 percent funding of various activities under this programme.