Keeping in mind that the government would need Rs 51,000 crore in next 20 years to clean up the river, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) had in October 2014 included donations to the Swachh Bharat Kosh and the Clean Ganga Fund as part of the CSR spends by India Inc, but the response has not been encouraging.

Now a dozen of companies, including Tata Group, Yes Bank, Bharat Vikas Group (BVG), National Projects Construction Corporation (NPCC) and IVRCL have shown interests to bid for tenders for ‘River surface and Ghat Cleaning Programme’, whereby government will pay companies for carrying out the tasks. The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), the implementation agency, recently held a pre-bidding meeting in Lucknow, to discuss modalities with companies.

The companies having an annual turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or more, or a net worth of Rs 500 crore or more, or a net profit of Rs 5 crore or more are supposed to keep aside at least 2 per cent of their average profits in the last three years, for CSR activities.

The total revenue of Tata Group together (2013-14) is Rs 6.23 lakh crores, Yes Bank during the period of 2014-15 made Rs 1.15 lakh crore, while IVRCL’s was that of Rs 31,174 crore. Yes Bank should have contributed Rs 400 crore towards its CSR activities in 2014-15.

“So far, we have not received any official confirmation from any company willing to use the CSR funds for the Ganga clean-up project. Instead, most of them want to take up the bidding route whereby, we will pay them for the work,” a senior water ministry official said.

But that hasn’t stopped the corporations from competing to score brownie points. The majority of companies, including Tata, are interested in taking up the work in Varanasi, which happens to be PM’s Lok Sabha constituency. During campaigning in run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi had vowed to clean the Ganga.

The two-year programme intends to clean up the ghats across 11 towns--Rishikesh, Haridwar, Garhmukteshwar, Mathura-Vrindavan, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Sahibganj, Kolkata and Nabadweep.

The plan is to start by cleaning and maintaining the ghats along the route of the Ganga. According to the rough estimates by NMCG, they would require around Rs 50 crore annually for the upkeep of Ghats in 11 major towns falling across the five states—Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal—from where the holy river passes before falling into Bay of Bengal.

To ensure that work is actually being carried out, the people cleaning the ghats will have to submit daily photos and videos before and after every clean-up via mobile app. Interestingly, the NMCG has also kept a provision for penalising the companies if they fail in their daily cleaning. In case of failure in cleaning ghats a fine of Rs 10,000 per ghat per day will be imposed.

“We are open to both – companies taking bidding route or donating money under CSR to us. Companies are also allowed to take up more than one city if they wish to. The project is initially for a period of two years but can be extended later on. More cities can also be added later on depending upon the final outcome,” the official added.

However, social and religious groups like the one headed by Mata Amritanandmayi Devi is also in talks with the government to donate Rs 100 crore for building toilets in Jharkhand while, Sulabh has expressed interest for construction and maintenance of toilets along the river.

Solid waste management at ghats will be the key feature of the project, wherein, the contractors need to ensure that there’s no floating solid waste going into the river. Efforts will also be taken to ensure that ghats are cleaned regularly and dustbins are put up at every 50 metre. Regular disposal of cremation ghat waste, and setting up toilet facilities are the other features.

The Central Government has prepared short-term, mid-term and long-term plans ranging for over 18 years, to clean the river which includes ensuring 100 per cent sewage infrastructure in 118 cities along the Ganga basin, industrial pollution abatement and sand mining guidelines.