Welcoming the Government of India move which led Swami Atmabodhanand to break his 194-day fast at Matri Sadan, Haridwar, for cleaning up Ganga, senior activist Chandra Vikash, who campaigned for the cause, has regretted that this was made possible only after “significant pressure” from civil society groups on the government to “relent on its criminal negligence” for the cause.
Calling Ganga a “most valuable natural resource”, he said, despite this, the government tried to “to cover up by a canard of lies and disinformation to cloud the public opinion on how it had cleaned up the Ganga.”
Vikash added, Nitin Gadkari, the minister in charge of Ganga rejuvenation, has now “climbed down from his vague proclamations of having cleaned up 80% to 70% and most recently 30% when the truth is that the mother river is even more polluted and being wrecked by dams and other encroachments even in areas where the previous Manmohan Singh government had declared eco-sensitive zone.”
“This entire operation involved large number of people who could influence and prevail upon the government's callous intransigence”, he added.
Thus, in April, Vikash said, he met and requested Sri Sri Ravishankar to visit Matri Sadan in Haridwar, following an earlier letter to the President of India, followed by an interview with Sant Atmabodhanand with getting veteran journalist Dr Vedpratap Vaidik, who is well-acquainted with both Gadkari and the President, the Ganga padayatra led by Sandeep Pandey, the protest at Jantar Mantar by Dr Vijay Verma and Supreme Court Advocate PS Sharda, and arranging the United Nations team to visit Matri Sadan.
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