A dedicated team of volunteers to fight for the cause of the river Ganga will be ready soon with a proposed training centre coming up at Bheekampura in Alwar district of Rajasthan offering different courses on the river protection. The “Ganga rejuvenation centre” being opened on Monday will offer five types of training ranging from that of the Ganga sevak (worker) to the Ganga Prabanthak (manager) to Ganga Rishi (saint or expert) free of charge to the aspirants. “The Ganga now needs warriors for re-establishing the community-driven management of the river. They will be a committed volunteer force educated on the river rejuvenation theme and on the specific aspects of the national river,” said Waterman Rajendra Singh who is a member of the National River Ganga Basin Authority (NRGBA) and the inter- ministerial group on the Ganga. “We are starting the centre at Bheekhampura, the Tarun Bharat Sangh headquarters on August 20 as this had been the day in 2009 a ministerial group headed by the present President of India Pranab Kumar Mukherjee and attended by Union Minister Jairam Ramesh made a decision to stop work on the hydro-electric projects at Bhairon Ghati and Pala Maneri on the Bhagirathi river,” Mr. Singh said. The proposed dams were meant for routing the Bhagirathi waters through long tunnels. A fast unto death by G.D. Agarwal, vice-chairman of Tarun Bharat Sangh, was suspended after the decision on the two projects. “The day happens to be the birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi who was the first leader to initiate measures to save the Ganga,” Mr. Singh noted. “Today all our small and big rivers are dying. Tarun Bharat Sangh launched the ‘Save the Rivers Mission’ in the year of 2000 and subsequently, the Ganga Satyagrah took shape. Ganga Satyagraha is against the encroachers, polluters and exploiters of the Ganga. In this Satyagraha dedicated Ganga Warriors are required. These warriors will fight for the rejuvenation of ‘aviral and nirmal Ganga’ (Continuously flowing and clean Ganga) upholding the tenets of peace and non-violence as Tarun Bharat Sangh believes in the ideology of Mahatma Gandhi,” said Mr. Singh. Mr. Singh will lead the training programme along with a group of experts, who include R. N. Singh, ex- Director National Environment Research Institute; Paritosh Tyagi, former president, Central Pollution Control Board; NRGBA members Ravi Chopra and Rashid Hayat Siddiqi, Prof. G. D. Agarwal, and Bharat Jhunjhunwala.