NEW DELHI: In a significant step towards river-sensitive urban development, the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) – a central nodal agency for river rejuvenation – has approved an action plan for 145 cities, located along different rivers across the country, which is to be implemented in 2025 for keeping stretches of the respective rivers healthy and sustainable.
Formulated under the River Cities Alliance (RCA) which was launched in 2021 aimed at rejuvenating urban rivers across India, the plan covers Agra, Ayodhya, Kanpur, Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Jhansi, Dehradun, Haridwar, Patna, Ranchi, Howrah, Pune, Nashik, Chennai, Hyderabad, Udaipur, Bhubaneshwar, Surat, Thiruvunanthapuram and Visakhapatnam among others.
The national capital Delhi will be covered under the Urban River Management Plan (URMP) which is one of the key components of the RCA to guide sustainable, integrated, and actionable river rejuvenation efforts.
“The URMP in Delhi will serve as a model for other metropolitan cities, anchoring the vision of resilient and river-sensitive urban development,” said an official note on the action plan.
It said the initiative seeks to redefine Delhi’s river (Yamuna) as vital ecosystems and not just water channels, paving the way for sustainable and inclusive urban river management in alignment with national environmental priorities.
The list of 145 cities includes 14 from Uttarakhand, 25 from Uttar Pradesh, 20 from Bihar, 14 from Jharkhand, 32 from West Bengal and remaining 40 from the rest of India.
Jointly spearheaded by the ministry of Jal Shakti and the ministry of housing and urban affairs, the action plan aims to integrate river-centric planning into the urban development agenda across India.
The 2025 plan focuses on enhancing institutional capacities, fostering inter-city collaboration, and embedding river-sensitive thinking into city master plans. Preparation of River-Sensitive Master Planning (RSMP) is another component of the action plan.
According to NMCG, five cities – Kanpur, Ayodhya, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Moradabad, and Bareilly – have already developed their URMPs, setting the benchmark for other urban centres. Twenty-five more URMPs will be prepared this year. It will be part of creating 60 such plans across India over the next two to three years in the first phase.