World Bank pledges to help clean India's holy Ganges

(AFP PHOTO/Prakash SINGH)

The World Bank said Wednesday it would give India at least one billion dollars in assistance for cleaning up the heavily polluted Ganges, Hinduism's most sacred river.

The clean-up involves building modern sewage treatment, revamping drains and other measures to improve the quality of the river, which has been badly polluted by industrial chemicals, farm pesticides and other sewage.

"The World Bank is helping the government of India in its recently launched programme to clean and conserve the Ganga (Ganges) River with an initial assistance of one billion dollars to be provided over the next four-to-five years," the lender said in a statement issued with the Indian government.

"This is a project of enormous national importance and I am pleased that the World Bank has come forward to assist us," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told reporters in New Delhi.

He spoke at a news conference with World Bank chief Robert Zoellick.

Millions of Indians bathe in the holy river, known to Hindus as the Mother Ganges.

The Ganges "has sustained civilisation throughout time but is today burdened by expanding production and industries and urban development along its banks and its basin with all the pollution this brings," Zoellick said.

"The Bank would be honoured to help and support India in its renewed endeavour to revitalise this uniquely important river," he said.

In 1985 India's then-premier Rajiv Gandhi launched a grand Ganges clean-up project but the river remains heavily polluted.

The Congress-led government has recently announced a fresh multi-billion-dollar plan to clean up the Ganges under the newly formed National Ganga River Basin Authority.

Ramesh said it would cost four billion dollars to achieve the "immediate objective of stopping all discharge of untreated sewage and industrial effluent" into the Ganges by 2020.

The assistance is part of plans by the World Bank to sharply increase lending to India for development, infrastructure and other projects.

India's finance ministry announced on Wednesday that World Bank loans to the country were expected to triple to seven billion dollars this year.