'E-flows restoration a major intervention with stakeholder engagement'

(MENAFN- IANS)

New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS) Director General, National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Rajiv Ranjan Mishra said the Ganga River Basin Management Plan (GBRMP), by a consortium of IITs, covers the issue of pollution and suggested solutions with focus on retaining the water quality and quantity.

"The other challenges related to environmental flow, wetland conservation and development, wildlife protection and so on are key elements covered under the GRBMP and are being implemented by NMCG through Public-Private Partnerships," Mishra said on Tuesday.

He was talking at a 'Meet & Mingle' session on 'Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM): Stakeholder Engagement' on the second day of the Stockholm World Water Week 2021 virtually. The session was hosted by NMCG.

Mishra focused on the importance of stakeholder engagement including fisheries, agriculture, forestry, and others with aim of successful implementation of IRBM in Ganga River Basin. He also said: "We need to learn from international experiences and understand the characteristics and challenges. To solve this multi-faceted problem a collaborative approach is required where both federal and local need to be collaborated."

Project Manager, GIZ India, Birgit Vogel shared the European River Basin Management Approach and how it can be adopted within Indian context.

"To address the complexity of river basin system, we need holistic approach integrating different tools and governance approaches. The EU Water Framework has been implemented since 2000 and around 200 River Basin Management Plans have been drafted and implemented in that region," she said and mentioned about the knowledge support provided by GIZ for development of Tapi River Basin Management in India.

The major key points to consider, explained by Vogel, included basin wide scale assessment comprising what it contains, risk management cycle as basic tool; river basin committee for monitoring purposes; focus on key issues to prioritise in the basin such as pollution, quantity and quality of water; hydrological management; sand mining and so on.

Director, WWF India, Suresh Babu talked on the importance of stakeholder engagement in IRBM in Ramganga basin. Ramganga is the key tributary of river Ganga and most of the water is utilized for agriculture purposes. "Hence the restoring of flows was conceptualized as major intervention with stakeholder engagement in Karula region within Ramganga basin," he said.

The key take-away points mentioned by him included integration with allied departments such as horticulture, forestry and other; collaboration with farmers and youth and conducting awareness around water solutions and impact assessment through youth and community participation. He concluded by saying that focus should be on defining local solutions, integration of different departments and practical scalability are important.

Professor Vinod Tare from IIT-Kanpur suggested to adopt bottom-up approach by empowering the district level government bodies. Professor S Chary Vedala from ASCI talked about looking at IRBM from the inter-generational issue as well. Manu Bhatnagar from INTACH talked about developing basin wise data collection system, budget-wise approaches to support IRBM implementation and data development on small streams.

The programme was moderated by WWF India Programme Director Sejal Worah, the release added.

--IANS

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