Ganga Task Force(GTF)

Why is it in news?
  • In January 2019, when the Uttar Pradesh government organises the Kumbh Mela, it will have a special unit to help: a volunteer force of ex-servicemen.
  • The Ganga Task Force (GTF), specially trained by the Ministry of Defence will help with crowd management, spread awareness on keeping the river clean and stop people and industry from polluting the river.
  • Currently, a “battalion” of 300 personnel has already been trained and stationed in Allahabad.
  •  Plans are afoot to expand it to 500 and post them in Kanpur and Varanasi
  • The GTF is a unit of the Territorial Army deployed in the services of the Ganga with the approval of Ministry of Defence for four years till December 2020.
  • It consists of three companies of over 100 men each to be stationed at Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi, with the Battalion headquarters at Allahabad.
  • The full strength would be 532, including 9 officers and 29 Junior Commanding Officers (JCOs).
Mandate
  • Their functions will include:
    1. Planting trees to check soil erosion,
    1. patrolling sensitive river areas for biodiversity protection,
    1. patrolling ghats,
    1.  monitoring river pollution, and assisting during floods/natural calamity in the region.
  • The jawans have also been trained by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to measure the health of the river.
  • In 2015, the government, had cleared the creation of such a force.
Namami Gange
  • The NMCG runs the ‘Namami Gange’ mission to clean the Ganga river.
  • It has a ₹20,000-crore, Centrally-funded, non-lapsable corpus and consists of nearly 288 projects.
Source
The Hindu



Posted by Jawwad Kazi on 8th Oct 2018
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