National Mission for Clean Ganga, Ministry of Jal Shakti, and the Government of India organized Nadi Utsav-River Festival in various important towns and cities on a large scale across 5 Ganga Basin States (Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal). The events reached out to lakhs of people, especially local communities and youth groups through a series of public outreach and engagement activities including- maha Ganga aarti, cultural events, dance & drama, poetry recitals, deepdan, etc. on the Ghats and other places around the river. The Nadi Utsav received a huge response and witnessed a massive mass mobilization across the river basin. It is one of a kind of unprecedented public engagement leading to mass movement on creating awareness for Ganga Rejuvenation and strengthening people-river connection. The River Festival is being developed as a model with the aim to connect people to the rivers and inculcate their 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 them clean and healthy. All mediums — print and digital — are being leveraged to reach out to the largest number of people and efforts have been made to organize Nadi Utsav in a way that sees massive participation from the grassroots organizations, on-ground cadres of volunteers and district administrators, and truly make this a Jan Bhagidari event.
