Cleaning Ganga 'doable', but one needs right approach, money & time: German official

"When we Germans do something, we do it thoroughly," Mr Wieck said.

Cleaning river Ganga though is a gigantic task, it is very much "doable and achieve-able", a senor German diplomat said here on Thursday.
"It is doable and achieve-able....," Jasper Wieck, Charged D' Affairs in German embassy in India, told reporters here.
"We can share with you from the experience of cleaning two rivers in Germany including Rhine is that things are doable. You can turn around a largely polluted river into a one with clean water where you can swim without any risk," he said.

For this essentially one would need three things, he said adding - "First of all, time, second money and third you have to have the right approach".
It is in the context of 'approach' he said in 2015 the German government committed to the Indian government to invest interest subsidised loan up to 120 million EUR through the German Development Bank KFW.

German embassy officials here said that the Uttarakhand government has proposed KFW to support investments totalling EUR 150 million out of which EUR 120 million shall be financed through an interest subsidised loan and EUR 30 million shall be contribution of the state of Uttarakhand.
Germany is part of the project in India as part of the Namami Gange project that started launched by the Modi government in 2014.

A joint project has been already taken up with the target to reduce the inflow of untreated wastewater in the river Ganga in order to improve the quality of the river.

The project also envisages to extend and improve the supply of urban population with environmentally friendly infrastructure, especially sewage infrastructure in Haridwar and Rishikesh.
"In Germany, we required 30 years to clean river Rhine," Mr Wieck said.
There was also requirement of huge amount of Euro 45 billion.
Answering questions, he said most cumbersome issue that needs to laid emphasis with regard cleaning Ganga would be "to reduce the amount of waste water".

"There is also need to reduce the toxicity of the waste water. This goes into over all environment friendly methods and thus it is linked to the behavioural changes.
There is also need for having enough sewage treatment plants, he said.
To a question, he said, the cooperation, the German team working on the project is getting, has been fairly satisfactory. "We have been accepted with open arms," he said.
"When we Germans do something, we do it thoroughly," Mr Wieck said.