5 Nov 2008, Bhaskar Roy , ToI
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday announced that the Ganga would soon be declared India's national river.
Chairing a meeting of the ministers for water resources, environment, forest and urban development, Singh mentioned the "special place the Ganga has in the hearts and minds of all Indians" and said that the "emotional link needs to be recognized".
Incidentally, one of the first decisions Rajiv Gandhi had taken soon after his swearing-in as Prime Minister following his mother's assassination was to clean up the river under the Ganga Action Plan.
It was not clear how the announcement on Tuesday would play out considering that it comes at a time when BJP is trying to use the terror attacks to tap into the sensitivities of the majority community. The PM proposed to set up a Ganga River Basin Authority to plan, implement and monitor the efforts to revive the river.
To be headed by the Prime Minister, the authority will have the chief ministers belonging to the Gangetic plains as members. The PM said that the authority should become a model for cleaning up rivers through institutional mechanism.
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