The World Bank has approved a five-year loan to the Namami Gange project worth ` 3,000 crore ($400 million) to develop and improve infrastructure projects to abate pollution in the river basin.

Funding

• The Namami Ganga or the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has already received ` 4,535 crore ($600 million) from the World Bank until December 2021 as part of the first phase of the National Ganga River Basin project.
• So far, 313 projects worth ` 25,000 crore have been sanctioned under the mission.

What is Namami Ganga Project?

• Initiatives to clean the Ganga began with the Ganga Action Plan I in 1986. Till 2014, over Rs 4,000 crore had been spent. But the river has remained dirty.
• So the Namami Gange was launched in mid-May 2015. It was the biggest-ever initiative—over Rs 20,000 crore was allotted.
• Namami Gange is being implemented by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), and its state counterparts—State Programme Management Groups.
• NMCG would establish field offices wherever necessary. The National Ganga Council (NGC) was created.
• And to give it utmost importance the Prime Minister was made the head of it. This council replaced the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA).
• NGC would have on board the chief ministers of five Ganga basin states—Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal—besides several Union ministers and it was supposed to meet once every year.