IAS officer Alok Kumar revives Ganga’s sub-tributary

Lucknow: Even as the governments grapple with the cleaning of Ganga river, an IAS officer in Uttar Pradesh has succeeded in cleaning and reviving a sub-tributary of the Ganga in Saharanpur district.

Alok Kumar, a 1998 batch officer, has now been invited by the Stockholm-based Water Resource Group to deliver a presentation of his work that successfully led to revival of a river named ‘Paundhoi’ during his stint as district magistrate of Saharanpur between 2008 and 2010.

‘Paundhoi’ runs a distance of about 8 kms before merging into river Hindon, a tributary of Ganga. “The river had become a garbage dumping site for the people and had turned filthy and choked. Being a rain and aquifer-fed river, there was not enough water supply and gradually it started shrinking,” the officer said.

Mr Kumar, who is presently posted as principal staff officer to UP chief secretary, said that the revival of the river became possible only because of strong participation of people who channelized their energy for a common cause. “We only managed the administration initiative for getting an almost-dead river revived."

"We created ‘mohalla committees’ and asked them to keep a vigil on people throwing garbage into the river. The committees also maintained vigil on each other. At the same time, the district administration got sewer lines flowing into the river stopped,” he said.

The district administration also asked people to get septic tanks constructed and prevent human waste from flowing into the river.