SME Times News Bureau | 25 May, 2018
Prime
Minister of Netherlands Mark Rutte on Friday inaugurated the
Indo-Dutch Ganga Forum to take forward the Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) signed between the Ministry of Water Resources,
River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India and the
Ministry of Infrastructure & Environment of the Netherlands
in June last year.
Addressing
the gathering, Rutte appreciated the efforts being made under Namami
Gange programme and acknowledged the vastness of the task at hand.
He
said that local governments, the financial sector and the private
sector as well as communities will need to join hands with the Indian
and the Netherlands governments.
He
also advocated waste-to-wealth approach to encourage sustainability
of projects.
Minister
of Water and Infrastructure, Netherlands, Cora van Nieuwenhuizen also
advocated trash-to-cash approach.
She
expressed the Netherlands government’s keenness to work closely
with National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG).
Secretary,
Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga
Rejuvenation, U.P Singh said that there are more than 2,000 aquatic
species in river Ganga and around 2 million people bathe in it every
day. He also said that cleaning river Ganga is a continuous
process.
Director
General, NMCG Rajiv Ranjan Mishra gave an overview of the Namami
Gange programme and said that the work is being done expeditiously to
achieve the herculean task of Ganga cleaning. He added that more
innovations are being brought-in to have more efficiency and
transparency and also to keep in mind life cycle costs.
The
inauguration of the Indo-Dutch Ganga Forum was followed by a
technical session on “Innovative Financing Models for Indo-Dutch
PPP Projects” during which a detailed discussion on Hybrid Annuity
based PPP mode took place.