Ganga Saaf Ho Gayi?

The Namami Gange mission would clean and rejuvenate the Ganga, launched with a ₹20,000 crore outlay and an original five-year window running to March 2021.

The mission's timeline was extended past its original March 2021 end date to March 2026, with budget raised to ₹22,500 crore for this second phase. Of 200 sanctioned sewage-treatment projects, 116 were completed and operational as of the most recent tracking. The Central Pollution Control Board's own water-quality monitoring shows river stretches meeting bathing-water criteria at several points, a genuine result, though that is a narrower bar than “clean.” It took a second five-year phase and more money to get there.

“Good news: you can bathe in it. Best not to ask what the original five-year plan assumed you'd be doing by 2021.”