NMCG expands Urban River Management Plans across Ganga basin cities

Urban River Management Plans under Namami Gange: what happened?

A city that sits on a river often treats the river as a drain. An Urban River Management Plan flips that: the river becomes part of the master plan, with flood rules, wetland repair and reuse of treated water written in from the start.

• Pilots in Ayodhya, Kanpur and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar shaped the scaled programme.
• Phase-I spans Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, from Gangotri and Rishikesh to Howrah, Asansol and Durgapur.
• Completed plans include Haldwani-Kathgodam, Ramnagar, Rishikesh, Gorakhpur, Shahjahanpur, Bijnor, Prayagraj, Mirzapur, Chapra, Buxar and Gaya.
• Kanpur is piloting COD Drain rejuvenation and LAMAS-based water-body revival; a Performance Based Incentive Grant under the NMCG–World Bank partnership will push ULBs to act.

What does a URMP cover?

• Three pillars: environmental, economic and social.
• Ten-point agenda: floodplain regulation, pollution abatement, wetland and water-body rejuvenation, riparian buffers, reuse of treated water, eco-sensitive riverfronts, quality return flows, economic use of river resources, and citizen engagement.
• Rooted in the National Ganga Council meeting in Kanpur in December 2019, which called for river-centric urban planning.

Why does Urban River Management Plans under Namami Gange matter?

• Environment: River health written into city planning under Namami Gange.

What can Prelims ask on Urban River Management Plans under Namami Gange?

• URMPs: NMCG with NIUA under Namami Gange.
• 13 completed; Phase-I 27 cities; Phase-II 33; overall 60; long-term 97 main-stem cities.
• Vision from National Ganga Council, Kanpur, December 2019.

What should UPPCS aspirants note?

• Completed UP URMPs named in the release include Gorakhpur, Shahjahanpur, Bijnor, Prayagraj and Mirzapur.
• Shahjahanpur’s plan uses the public campaign “Meri Nadi, Mera Shahar”.