Ganga Utsav

Ganga Utsav – The River Festival to be Celebrated on 4th November, 2022

The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti is organizing Ganga Utsav - The River Festival 2022 on 4th November, 2022 at Major Dhyan Chand Stadium in New Delhi.

One of the main objectives of Ganga Utsav 2022 is to celebrate our rivers and spread awareness on the significance of river rejuvenation across river basins in India.

Dedicating the grand event to the 75 years of Indian Independence (Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav), the aim is to hold similar events at more than 75 locations in states to celebrate the rivers of India.

Various activities of Ganga Utsav will take place at central, state, and district levels on both physical and virtual platforms.

Ganga Utsav 2022 will be an exciting blend of art, culture, music, knowledge, poetry, dialogue, and stories.

In order to rope-in the young crowd to the Ganga Utsav 2022, several activities like Puppet Show, Film Screening, Painting, Pottery & Nest Making Workshop, Book Stall.

A mini food festival will be part of the Ganga Utsav 2022. The food stalls from Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal will be set up for the people to feast on.

There will be a dedicated children activity area organised by GIZ and Tree Craze Foundation to enthral the younger crowd with fun-filled activities to the cause of river rejuvenation.

The Ganga Utsav 2022- The River Festival is being developed as a model for River Festivals with the aim to connect people to the rivers and inculcate its importance.

This is being done by bringing together celebrities, dignitaries and influencers from different walks of life on one platform, and celebrating rivers by bringing awareness to keep it clean and healthy.

Ganga Utsav 2022 will also have Arth Ganga as its focus area as it aims to establish people-river connect through the “bridge of economics” and will be an excellent platform to communicate the importance of rivers vis-a-vis the employment generational initiatives taken up under Arth Ganga model, which includes Natural Farming, Ghat Pe Haat, Jalaj, Training of Ganga Sewaks, Ganga Artis etc.

The six important verticals of Arth Ganga are Zero Budget Natural Farming, Monetization and Reuse of Sludge & Wastewater, Livelihood Generation, Public Participation, Cultural Heritage & Tourism and Institutional Building.

NMCG has already organised several workshops to nudge the farmers to shift to Natural Farming along the Ganga Basin. Hundreds of farmers participated in workshop/training in Shirdi, Bulandshahr, Sonipat and Haridwar.

Initially, the festival started off as ‘Ek Shaam Ganga Ke Naam’, a small event involving limited stakeholders in 2017.

With the help of international association such as Indo-German collaboration, the event subsequently developed into ‘Bal Ganga Mela’ in 2018.

The Bal Ganga Mela 2018 was organized in association with HCL Foundation. In 2019, the event progressed as a carnival wherein it witnessed enthusiastic participation of thousands of people with a focused approach towards roping in school students and youth.

The third edition of Ganga Utsav 2020 was a three-day virtual event and steadily took shape as the River Festival. The event was an interesting amalgamation of technology and cultural events.