The National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) has been formally transferred from the Environment Ministry to the Water Resources Ministry. In addition, the National Mission for clean Ganga and other related matters has also been transferred to the latter. These responsibilities have been given to the Ministry for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation to expand its role to include looking after all matters relate to the Ganga and its tributaries.
The International Standards Organisation (ISO) has announced the new standard ISO 14046: Environmental management – Water footprint – Principles, requirements and guidelines. The new ISO will provide a way for industries, government and non-profit organisations to measure their water footprint or their wastage of water and provide suggestions to reduce their water use. ISO has taken up the life-cycle assessment method for finding out the extent of possible water-related environmental impacts.
Centre is planning to develop an Inland Water Transport Grid covering about 4,500 km at an estimated cost of Rs. 20,000 crore. The project will cover a majority of the big rivers except Narmada, Tapi and Cauvery. The process of preparing detailed project reports will start soon. The Government is all set to move ahead with the proposed Haldia-Allahabad National Waterway project while skipping the environmental clearance for navigation through the 7 km tortoise sanctuary in Ganga in Varanasi.
Centre launches Rs 6,235 crore scheme to repair, renovate and restore water bodies
Government has earmarked Rs. 6,235 crore for repair, renovation and restoration (RRR) of 10,000 water bodies across the country for the XII five-year plan. The Centre will provide help to the states in the form of funds and will bear 90% of the project cost for special category areas, the Northeast states, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and undivided districts of Odisha, while providing 25% of the project cost to non-special category states. However, this grant does not include the creation of new ponds.
The Environment Ministry has notified reconstituting the National Board for Wildlife. It mentions only one name for non-government members instead of five and in place of ten ecologists it has notified only two names. Even the National Biodiversity Authority will be headed by a bureaucrat, Environment Secretary V. Rajagopalan. Further, it is working to amend the environment clearance process by delegating more powers to the state authorities and thus, easing norms to make way for more projects.
This is a weekly roundup of policy matters from August 4-11, 2014. Also read last week's news roundup.