Pankaj Shah, Times News Network, Sep 5, 2010, 04.31am IST
LUCKNOW: First, it was environmentalist GD Agarwal who went on a hunger strike to pressurise the Centre into abandoning a 600 MW Loharinag-Pala hydro-electric power project over the Ganga in Uttarakhand. And now, Magsaysay award winner Rajendra Singh plans to constitute `Ganga Panchayats’ in towns and villages along the Ganga, similar to the one his group, Tarun Bharat Sangh, structured to revive the dying Arwari river in Alwar.
Spread over 90 towns and 1000 villages between Gaumukh in Uttarakhand and Gangasagar in West Bengal, these panchayats would oppose tooth and nail all such government projects between Gaumukh and Gangasagar which threaten the sanctity and ecological aspects of the sacred river. The first such panchayat would be formed in Haridwar on October 2. [more]
