C.R. Paatil Chairs 20th Ganga Empowered Task Force Meeting

The 20th meeting of the Empowered Task Force (ETF) on Ganga rejuvenation was held in New Delhi on 8 October 2026 under the chairmanship of Union Jal Shakti Minister C. R. Paatil. Minister of State Raj Bhushan Chaudhary joined the meeting, along with the Director General of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Rajeev Kumar Mital, and officials of several ministries and State governments. The agenda covered sewage infrastructure, scientific water management, safe reuse of treated wastewater, aquifer mapping, wetlands and Nature-based Solutions.

Namami Gange: the numbers reviewed

As of August 2026, the programme has sanctioned 527 projects worth 43,266 crore rupees, of which 368 are finished. Sewerage work accounts for 219 sanctioned projects that will add 6,603 MLD of treatment capacity and 5,245 km of sewer network; 147 of these are complete, delivering 4,339 MLD of capacity and 4,615 km of network. The table below sets out the position.

Rivers taken up

A main focus was the Gomti Udgam Sthal in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, whose master plan was cleared at the 68th Executive Committee meeting of NMCG in December 2025. The detailed project report for lake restoration and a 1 MLD Nature-based Solutions sewage plant has been approved, with administrative approval and expenditure sanction issued on 17 September 2026, while the report on restoring turtle habitat and the Panchvatika goes to the 74th Executive Committee. The meeting also took up the Niranjana or Falgu river in Bihar, for which the Secretary of the State Water Resources Department has been named nodal officer, and reviewed Yamuna work at Mathura-Vrindavan, Kosi-Chhata, Agra, Firozabad and Etawah in Uttar Pradesh along with Delhi measures such as the Yamuna Ecological Task Force and drone surveys of drains.

Courses, policies and outreach

The Minister carried forward the call to put water into classrooms, seeking water curricula in schools, water subjects in engineering universities and governance courses in higher education. Under the River Cities Alliance, NMCG and NIUA have built two courses, Principles of Urban River Management and Eco-friendly Waterfront Development, the first taught at Mitraj Sarvajanik, formerly SCET Surat, and OP Jindal Global University, and the second at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal. Bihar and West Bengal have notified policies on reuse of treated wastewater and Jharkhand is seeking Cabinet approval. Workshops on a framework for small river rejuvenation were held in New Delhi, Pune and Guwahati, and on World River Day the 39th Ganga Task Force of 137 CETF Battalion (TA) ran drives at Prayagraj, Varanasi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Delhi.