Critical Analysis of Institutional Framework created for GAP by CAGI

Report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India , 2000. It is about unsatisfactory performance of Ganaga Action plan.
o :---- "There were shortfalls in allocation of resources. Of the total domestic sewage of 5044 mld, in 110 towns selected for pollution abatement along the banks of river Ganga and its tributaries, the GAP addressed itself to process only 2794 mld. The reported achievement of the participating States was 1095.69 mld, i.e. only 39 per cent of truncated target. The assets created in the Scheme suffered impairment and closure because of technical design flaws, inter se mismatch of the schemes and their components, problems in land acquisition, contract mismanagement, lack of adequate maintenance, and in general because of lackadaisical attitude of the States and their implementing agencies. Technologies adopted by the NRCD for construction of STPs were often questionable inasmuch as they could not adequately address the problem of reducing bacterial load in the river to the desired level. The NRCD has abandoned the crucial activity of monitoring the water quality monitoring on river Ganga since September 1999, reportedly for want of funds, and deprived itself of a key instrument of overall performance monitoring of the GAP. The NRCD could not show to Audit any satisfactory recorded evidence that it discharged its coordinating and monitoring functions properly vis-à-vis the participating States and the implementing agencies. The Ministry of Environment and Forests needs to: seriously review the implementation of the entire GAP; evolve a financing arrangement whereby the States and the implementing agencies develop a more involved stake in creation of assets, their maintenance, and their functionality at all times; revive and strengthen technical and administrative monitoring to ensure the value for money of assets created at great public expense; and, not the least, facilitate competent technological support for optimum utilisation of resources".