Jal Ganga Samvardhan Abhiyan

• 07 Apr 2025

Why in News? 

The Jal Ganga Samvardhan Abhiyan has been launched for the conservation and revival of water sources, including rivers, ponds, wells, and stepwells within the urban areas of Madhya Pradesh. 

Key Points 

• About the campaign: 
  • This campaign started on the banks of Kshipra River on 30 March 2025 and will continue till 30 June 2025. 
• Objective: 
  • Conservation of water sources : The main objective of Jal Ganga Abhiyan is to conserve and revive the water structures (rivers, ponds, wells, stepwells etc.) of the state.  
  • This also includes a plan to purify dirty water drains under Swachh Bharat Mission-2.0. 
  • Promoting public participation : In this campaign, efforts are being made by the urban bodies to ensure the participation of citizens, especially women. 
  • Events on various religious and cultural occasions : During the campaign, events like cultural programmes, plantation and tree planting will be organized on special days like Ganga Dussehra (5th June) and Bat Savitri Purnima.  
  • Through these events the importance of water structures and nature will be highlighted. 
  • Conservation and enhancement of natural resources : In this campaign, there is a plan to create green belts around water structures and the soil excavated during the digging of water structures will be given to farmers, so that natural resources can be used better. 
• Guidelines and Implementation: 
  • To treat the dirty water drains found in water structures after diversion under Swachh Bharat Mission-2.0. 
  • Provision of drinking water facility at important places in the city. 
  • Establishment of rain-water harvesting system in colonies. 
  • Arrangements for repairing leakage so that water is not wasted. 
  • To prepare Jaldoot, Jal Mitra and Amrit Mitra.  

Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) 

• Introduction: 
  • This was a massive people's movement, whose aim was to create a clean India by the year 2019. The foundation of the Swachh Bharat Mission was laid on the occasion of 2 October 2014 (Gandhi Jayanti). This mission covers all rural and urban areas. 
  • The urban component of this mission is implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the rural component is implemented by the Ministry of Jal Shakti. 
• Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban: 
  • Step 1: 
    • The programme includes elimination of open defecation, conversion of insanitary latrines to flush toilets, elimination of manual scavenging, municipal solid waste management and behaviour change of people with regard to healthy hygiene practices. 
    • The mission aims to cover 1.04 crore households, provide 2.5 lakh community toilets and 2.6 lakh public toilets, and build a solid waste management facility in every city. 
    • As a required support for construction of community toilets, up to 40% of the cost of construction of community toilets will be provided by the Central Government as Viability Gap Funding (VGF) /One-time Grant. As per SBM guidelines, States/UTs will provide an additional 13.33% for the said component. 
  • North-eastern states and special category states will have to contribute only 4%. The funds will have to be arranged by the urban local body through innovative mechanisms. The estimated cost per seat of a community toilet is Rs 65,000. 
  • Step 2: 
    • SBM-U 2.0 envisages making all cities 'garbage free' and ensuring grey water management in all cities other than those covered under 'AMRUT', converting all urban local bodies into ODF+ and cities with population less than 1 lakh into ODF++, so as to achieve the goal of safe sanitation in urban areas. 
      • The mission focuses on segregation of solid waste at source, use of principles of 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) , scientific processing of all types of municipal solid waste and remediation of old dumpsites for effective solid waste management. The outlay of SBM-U 2.0 for the period 2021-22 to 2025-26 is about Rs 1.41 lakh crore.