Dehradun-based student activists’ group, Making a Difference by Being the Difference (MAD), continued its Rispana river rejuvenation awareness programme on Sunday. Members of the organisation made their way to Old Rajpur from where they began a trek through the upper riparian area of the Rispana valley.
In the course of the trek, members noted the plastic waste littered all around and discussed the prospects of starting an intense awareness campaign among the youth to ensure the Rispana valley is not left in this condition. In the course of this trek, members also tried to specifically identify the water retention sites and specific plantation areas.
MAD members have been campaigning extensively to rejuvenate Rispana river for about seven years now. However, the movement has gained new momentum ever since Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat also started taking special interest in the group's long standing demand.
Earlier on November 15, MAD had given a special presentation to a high powered committee lead by the chief secretary of Uttarakhand on its inputs to rejuvenate Rispana. These inputs dealt with the National Institute of Hydrology Roorkee report prepared in 2014 which had earmarked Rispana as a perennial stream and had laid down a brief road map to continue with further studies and to initiate a rejuvenation programme.
MAD has demanded the consideration and implementation of this report. MAD had also suggested that since the Ministry of Environment and Forest had accepted that Rispana and Bindal form a part of the Ganga River Basin, their revival should be undertaken as an integral part of the Namami Gange mission.