River Cities Alliance will connect rivers with cities, says Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat
By: Pallab Ghosh
Radiance News Service
Union Minister for Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat launched the River Cities Alliance, the first-of-its-kind Alliance in the world is a dedicated platform for river cities in India to ideate, discuss and exchange information for sustainable management of rivers. The alliance symbolizes the successful partnership of the Ministry of Jal Shakti and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
The newly launched River City Alliance will focus predominantly on three aspects - Networking, Capacity Building, and Technical Support. The Secretariat of the Alliance will be set up at National Institute for Urban Affairs (NIUA), with National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) support.
Speaking on the occasion, the minister said, "This is a unique initiative as there is a constant need to protect the natural resources and rivers are the life of cities. The alliance will not only keep the rivers and surroundings clean but will also enable cities to learn from each other’s successes and failures as well as connect people with the rivers". He said it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had raised the need for such a programme to save and connect rivers during a meeting of the National Ganga Council (NGC) at Kanpur in December 2019.
Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Durga Shankar Mishra mentioned the importance of our rivers and the need to connect them to cities, "Today, the cities are getting detached with the rivers due to urbanisation. The alliance can play an important role in connecting cities with their rivers".
Secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Pankaj Kumar, mentioned the importance of the River City Alliance as it will give an opportunity to municipal administrators to take various developmental initiatives, learn, and inspire each other".
The names of the 30 cities across 11 states that have participated in the River Cities Alliance:
Hooghly-Chinsurah, Howrah, Begusarai, Dehradun, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Bhagalpur, Munger, Patna, Berhampore, Jangipur, Maheshtala, Rajmahal, Sahibganj, Ayodhya, Bijnor, Mathura-Vrindavan, Mirzapur, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Farrukhabad, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Pune, Udaipur and Vijayawada, Aurangabad, Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Srinagar.