No environmental clearance given to projects on Ganga in 2 years: Government

New Delhi: No environmental clearance has been granted to any project on river Ganga in the last two years, government told Rajya Sabha on Monday.

When members during Question Hour expressed concern over the impact various projects could have had on the flow of the river, Environment and Forests minister Prakash Javadekar said "during the last two years, the Ministry has not granted any environmental clearance to projects on Ganga."

Maintaining that uninterrupted flow of water in the river was a matter of priority, he said the flow of the river is one of the conditions stipulated in environment clearance granted to hydropower projects.

"The ministry recently considered the unfettered and uniterrupted flow of minimum 1000 cusecs of water in the natural river basin for the proposed hydropower projects in river Ganga and its three main tributaries i.e. Alaknanda, Bhagirathi and Mandakini based upon the outcome of proceedings of a conference held at Hardwar in December 1916," he said.

Javadekar also said that work on 24 projects on the river had been stopped by the Supreme Court while also mentioning the efforts made to clean the river.