A river rejuvenation programme eventually comes down to one unglamorous question: is there enough treatment capacity to handle what's flowing into it. India's latest review spent most of its time there.
What the Review Covered
Union Jal Shakti Minister C R Paatil chaired the 20th meeting of the Empowered Task Force (ETF) on Ganga Rejuvenation in New Delhi, reviewing the Namami Gange programme's sewerage portfolio alongside progress on safe reuse of treated wastewater (SRTW). As of the meeting, 219 sewerage projects have been sanctioned under the programme, together accounting for 6,603 MLD of treatment capacity and a 5,245 km sewer network. Of these, 147 projects are already complete, having added 4,339 MLD of treatment capacity and 4,615 km of sewer network so far.
On the broader programme, 527 projects worth a combined ₹43,266 crore have been sanctioned as of August 2026, with 368 of them completed to date.
The Push on Safe Reuse Policy
Beyond capacity numbers, the meeting tracked which states have actually formalised how they intend to reuse treated wastewater. Bihar and West Bengal have notified their reuse policies, while Jharkhand's policy is still awaiting state cabinet approval. Paatil reportedly pressed for river rejuvenation to be treated as more than a pollution-abatement exercise, calling for ecological restoration to be integrated with groundwater management and for the programme to produce measurable results rather than process milestones.
Project-specific updates included a revised detailed project report (DPR) for the Barauni sewage treatment plant, now with IIT-BHU for technical appraisal, and approval of the DPR for Shantipur's STPs in West Bengal. A nature-based, 1 MLD STP tied to the Gomti Udgam Sthal restoration project in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, received sanction on September 17, 2026.
Why Reuse Policy Matters as Much as Capacity
Treatment capacity without a clear reuse framework tends to under-deliver on its own promise. A state that builds sewage treatment plants but has no formalised policy on where that treated water goes, whether to irrigation, industry, or groundwater recharge, risks ending up with treated water that simply gets discharged rather than put to productive use, the same structural gap that has slowed reuse ambitions in cities well outside the Ganga basin.
This is the same dynamic playing out at city scale in places like Gurugram, where a court-driven push toward "zero discharge, maximum reuse" is running into exactly the kind of policy and infrastructure gap that national programmes like Namami Gange are now trying to close systematically, by pairing sewage treatment plant capacity with a formal destination for the water it produces, rather than treating the two as separate problems.
What This Means Going Forward
With roughly 2,264 MLD of sanctioned treatment capacity still under construction across the sewerage portfolio, and three states at different stages of formalising reuse policy, the practical test for Namami Gange over the next year is less about announcing new projects and more about closing the gap between what gets built and what gets genuinely reused once it's running.
Key Highlights
- The 20th ETF meeting reviewed 219 sanctioned sewerage projects totalling 6,603 MLD of capacity
- 147 of these projects, adding 4,339 MLD of capacity, are already complete
- Bihar and West Bengal have notified safe-reuse policies for treated wastewater; Jharkhand's is pending cabinet approval
- The overall Namami Gange programme has sanctioned 527 projects worth ₹43,266 crore, with 368 completed
