New Delhi, Jun 14 (NIE): Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said the government was determined to clean the Ganga and Yamuna before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and claimed that 80 per cent of the Ganga will be cleaned by March next year, while the work would be completed by year-end.

The Namami Gange programme for cleaning of the Ganga was one of the major poll promises of the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Gadkari, who holds the Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation portfolio, had earlier directed officials to complete the work in a time-bound manner.

Claiming that the government was determined to clean not only Ganga, but also Yamuna and other tributaries, he said several steps have been taken in the direction.

“Twenty new towns along Yamuna and its tributaries (Hindon and Kali) have been identified for pollution abatement,” he said, adding six sewerage management projects on Yamuna in Delhi had been awarded and two others were under tendering process.

Gadkari said the plan was to develop a world-class ecological and environment-friendly riverfront park on a 35-km stretch of the Yamuna in Delhi. On Tuesday, he said a proposal to develop a sewage treatment plant at Saryu river in Ayodhya had been approved.

The minister was presiding over a tripartite concession agreement for the Hybrid Annuity-based PPP project in Mathura. The project, signed between the NMCG, Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam and Triveni Engineering & Industries Ltd, aims at developing an integrated city-wise sewage infrastructure.