Government hopes to clean 70-80 per cent of Ganga by 2019: Gadkari

New Delhi: The government’s spending on cleaning the Ganga will see a jump of Rs 8,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore this fiscal as several projects under the flagship Namami Gange programme will be completed, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday.

Seeking to change the perception that “nothing was happening” on the Namami Gange programme, the water resources minister also reiterated that the Centre will try to ensure 70 per cent to 80 per cent improvement in water quality of the river by March 2019.

Till the end of the previous fiscal, the Nation-al Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), an authority implementing the ambitious program-me, had spent only Rs 4,254 crore (or 20 per cent) of the around Rs 20,000 crore sanctioned for the programme since 2015.

Speaking to reporters in the national capital and also from the Ganga basin cities such as Kanpur, Varanasi and Patna via video conferencing on the status of implementation of the mission, Mr Gadkari said efforts will be made to clean the river in its entirety by December next year.

Cleaning the Ganga was one of the key poll promises made by the ruling BJP in the run up to the general election in 2014. “20 per cent of the amount was spent till March (from 2015). This year, there will be lot of expenditure... As per my assessment, we will be able to spend 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the (total) funds.