Lucknow, Nov 9 (IANS): The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has started taking stringent action against people and units polluting the Ganga in the state.

In the biggest strike against those polluting the holy river, the Namami Ganga department has slapped a fine of Rs 3 crore on a Varanasi-based company for callousness in running a sewage treatment plant (STP).

Teams of Namami Ganga are raiding at least 12 places across the state, checking the parameters and quality of STPs.

To ensure scaling up work on 'Clean And Flowing Ganga Mission', the state government has scaled up action and monitoring and checking of the parameters and quality of STPs, both government and private.

A total of nine teams have been constituted and they are conducting surprise inspections and investigating sewage disposal.

According to the official sources, the first action was taken in Varanasi where the Ramana STP was found not operating at the fixed parameters. It was also found that the quality of sewage disposal was not up to the mark and after completion of the probe, the Namami Gange department slapped a fine of Rs 3 crore on the company.

This is the biggest action so far against callousness in disposal of sewage.

This drive is underway at many other places in the state.

Uttar Pradesh has 104 operational STPs of which 44 STPs are under the purview of Namami Ganga.

The state government has rolled out an extensive awareness campaign for people towards cleanliness of Ganga. To ensure that the Ganga ghats are clean and that drains do not flow into the river, STPs are being made on a large scale.

Anurag Srivastava, Principal Secretary, Namami Gange, said that clean and flowing Ganga is being given top priority.