Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has approved the project of cleaning and rejuvenating the city’s very own Nag River. For the rejuvenation process National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD) had increased the cost of the project. The current cost of the plan is Rs 2,434 crore it has been increased to 65% earlier which was Rs1,476.96 crore.
The cost has been increased as the new taxes and delay in the initiation of the project had made the Nag river much denser in terms of pollution. This increase in costing was immediately initiated after a meeting held between Union Minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari and NMC, NRCD, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). This meeting was held at New Delhi where Gadkari directed NRCD to give approval to revised project cost. During this meeting Municipal Commissioner, Abhijeet Bangar was also present.
During the meeting it has been decided that NRCD will also complete a loan agreement between Government of India and Government of Japan.
Mohammad Israil, PPC told TLN that “The sanctioned project to rejuvenate the Nag River will take at least 4 to 5 years to complete the whole process. We have plans to beautify the surroundings’ of the river once the whole patch is cleaned totallyâ€.