About us

The holy river Ganga is a major river of the Indian subcontinent rising in the Himalaya mountains and flowing about 2,525 km (1,569 miles) generally eastward through a vast plain to the Bay of Bengal. Flowing through a vast length of 2,525 Kms, it crosses five states of India namely Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. It has catchment area of 8,61,404 km2 (26.4%) of India (NMCG, 2016). Major tributaries of River Ganga are Yamuna, Ramganga, Gomti, Ghaghara, Gandak, Damodar, Kosi and Kali-East. Flowing through major cities/towns like Srinagar, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Roorkee (in Uttarakhand), Bijnor, Narora, Kannauj, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Mirzapur (in Uttar Pradesh), Patna, Bhagalpur (in Bihar) and Beharampore, Serampore, Howrah and Kolkata (in West Bengal), it drains into the Bay of Bengal. The Ganga river basin is one of the most populated river basins in the world and is home to half the population of India. The basin provides over one-third of the available surface water in India and contributes to more than half the national water use (World Bank, 2018).

River Ganga is facing a severe impact of pollution due to industrial, agricultural and domestic wastes being dumped into it. The Central Government has set up the ‘National Ganga River Basin Authority’ (NGRBA) vide gazette notification dated 20th Feb, 2009 as a collaborative institution of Central and State Governments under the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA) of 1986 for abatement of pollution of River Ganga. The objective of the authority is to ensure effective abatement of pollution and conservation of the river Ganga by adopting a holistic approach with the river basin as the unit of planning.

National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) was registered as a society on 12th August, 2011 under the Societies Registration Act 1860. It acted as implementation arm of National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) which was constituted under the provisions of the EPA, 1986.

Further, NGRBA has been reconstituted in September, 2014 and again same has been dissolved with effect from the 7th October, 2016, consequent to constitution of National Council for River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) (referred as NCRG) vide notification no. S.O. 3187(E) dated 7th October, 2016 under EPA 1986. All things done or omitted to be done or actions taken or any money spent or authorised to be spent by the National Ganga River Basin Authority before such dissolution shall be deemed to have been done or taken under the corresponding provisions of this Order. There are three projects being carried out under the Namami Gange Programme (NGP) at CPCB is given in Table 1.

Table 1 Details of Projects under NGRBA Cell