Jalaj Project acts as a link between aquatic ecosystem and human who lives in their habitat. Therefore, an initiative towards strengthening symbiotic relationships between people and rivers, a project called “Jalaj: connecting rivers and people to realize Arth Ganga,” are being implemented by the Wildlife Institute of India under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India. It is a concept that focuses on creating economic livelihood opportunities to sustain the activities under “Namami Gange,” a flagship programme for clean Ganga and its tributaries. When talking about the rejuvenation and conservation of the Ganga river, people’s awareness and participation play a very significant role. Therefore, to enhance the bond between people and the river, Jalaj Centers have been established at 26 locations out of 75 proposed locations by the Jalaj Project, with the aim of making people aware about the Ganga and its biodiversity, and how to generate their livelihood by utilizing local natural resources. Hence, Jalaj acts as a livelihood diversification model providing capacity-building programmes that include offline and online comprehensive training, meetings, workshops, and seminars for the local communities. Along with, a trained cadre of Ganga Praharis “Gordians of Ganga” living near the river Ganga, ensures participation in biodiversity conservation and clean river ecosystem. These all initiatives are working in the direction of bringing stakeholder participation into ecological and economic significance for river conservation with “Arth Ganga” objectives.
Moreover, the Jalaj provides a platform for local communities to interact and discuss their socio-economic activities, for which a site-specific training framework are developed in accordance with the local skill set, raw materials, market, and demand. And also towards increasing their income, special local models like knowledge and sales booths (ghat par haat, Jalaj Aali), livelihood training, Eco-tourism safaris, health and wellness centers, local food points etc. are developing. These not only facilitate natural farming, marketing of organic food and materials but also encourage people to connect with the river in a true sense.
This training workshop was conducted by NMCG-Jalaj project. Addressing the gathering, Jalaj team talked about cultural and economical significance of the Ganga river. The training workshop was aimed at bringing together all women at one platform. Through they aware them about conservation of the Ganga’s bio-diversity with employment generation from organic local products making and selling.
Jalaj team is working as a link between local people and customers. They are promoting pollution free organic items made by local people to the society. In addition, this programme aims to stop non degradable items and to promote livelihood income by organizing various selling and knowledge booths in all over the Ganga basin.
Moreover, NMCG-Jalaj started an initiative with local citizens to create livelihood opportunities for those who are living along the bank of the river Ganga. Eco-tourism activities include such as boat safari, river walk, home-stay, biodiversity watch.