The team members of ‘Mission Gange’, a Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) initiative in Partnership with National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) have reached Delhi and are all set for the 1500-km, 4-week rafting expedition along the River Ganges during the period October 5 – 30, 2018. The expedition will start from Haridwar and end at Patna. The expedition will be led by India’s first woman to scale Mount Everest and Chief, Tata Steel Adventure Foundation, Ms. Bachendri Pal, recipient of Padma Shri and Arjuna Award.

The ambitious mission is aimed to create awareness at grassroots level by cleaning the river and riverfronts and educating people about waste management, clean environment and climate change. The team will start its expedition on October 5 from Haridwar traversing through Bijnor – Farukkhabad – Kanpur – Allahabad – Varanasi - Buxar and end with a drive in Patna. The expedition team will organize cleaning and awareness drives with the help of local communities, visit schools and other institutions to create awareness around waste management, climate change and Government of India’s ‘Mission Clean Ganga’ (Namami Gange).

NMCG will partner with TSAF for this important initiative, providing providing support for waste disposal, accommodation, volunteers, coordination with local authorities, NGOs and schools at various locations.

Speaking on the occasion of the Joint Press Conference held by Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) and NMCG in New Delhi today, TSAF Chief and Mission Gange Expedition leader Ms. Bachendri Pal said, “Our expedition is inspired by Government of India’s Namami Gange mission, which has been a very important step towards cleaning the Ganges that has been a life-supporting river for millions in our country. The aim of our expedition is to reach out to as many people as possible, heighten the awareness around keeping this great river clean and make a movement out of the Mission that had started four years ago.”

Speaking on the occasion Shri Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director General, NMCG said, “During the month long expedition, the team will stop at all major locations and carry out cleaning drives in concert with NMCG Stakeholders like Ganga Vichar Manch, Ganga Prahari, District Ganga Committee, local voluntary organisations and people from all walks of life. Awareness campaigns will be conducted in schools to sensitise them towards Ganga cleaning. Events such as ‘Ganga Chaupal’ will be conducted along the Ganga to create conversations between stakeholders.”

TSAF has brought together a diverse and industrious team of 40 individuals (20 women and 20 men) comprising 8 mountaineers (Bachendri Pal, Premlata Agarwal, Hemant Gupta, R S Pal, Chetna Sahoo, Binita Soren, Poonam Rana, Swarnlata Dalai) who have summited Mt. Everest, 26 Tata Steel employees, 5 engineers from Indian Institute of Technology, one radio jockey and management graduates.

In the run-up to the main expedition the team has already completed two cleaning drives at Jamshedpur, collecting more than 700 kg of Solid Waste. Team members also participated in cleanliness drive with NMCG at Kalindi Guj ghat at Delhi.

The cleaning and awareness drives will be carried out at the river ghats along the way, the details of which are as follows:

Mission Gange Activities
• Cleaning Drives
• Awareness in School
• Involving Local NGOs
• Ganga Chaupal
• Knowledge sharing through social media
• Municipalities have agreed to help us with the required resources and disposal of the collected waste.

Mission Gange Team Members:

About Tata Steel Adventure Foundation
Founded by legendary mountaineer Ms Bachendri Pal, first Indian woman to climb Mt Everest on May 23, 1984 Tata Steel Adventure Foundation is an outbound leadership institute which through its wide range of activities aims at developing able leaders for the future through identification of their limits of mental and physical endurance. It allows people from all walks of life and all ages to choose their own metaphor for self-discovery. True to its philosophy of experimental learning, TSAF believes that no classroom is better than nature and no teacher is better than your own will.

In addition to TSAF outbound leadership program, several other courses are conducted by TSAF like horse riding, parasailing, water sports, sport climbing, rock climbing and many others. Each course is a certification course thereby giving a sense of fulfillment and achievement at the end of it.

About Tata Steel
Tata Steel Group is among the top global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of 27.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) as on March 31, 2018. It is one of the world's most geographically-diversified steel producers, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Group recorded a consolidated turnover of US $20.41 billion (INR 133,016 crore) in FY18. Tata Steel Group is spread across five continents with an employee base of over 65,000. Tata Steel retained Industry Leader position in FY18 and ranked second overall in the DJSI assessment, 2017. The Company has been recognised as the Climate Disclosure Leader in ‘Steel category’ by CDP (2017). Besides being a member of the World Steel Climate Action Programme, Tata Steel was felicitated with several awards including the Prime Minister’s Trophy for the best performing integrated steel plant for 2014-15 and 2015-16, Best Risk Management by CNBC TV18 (2018) and ‘Corporate Strategy Award’ by Mint (2018). The Company also received the ‘Most Ethical Company’ award from Ethisphere Institute for the sixth time (2018), Steel Sustainability Champions (2017) by the World Steel Association, Dun & Bradstreet Corporate Awards (2017 & 2018), Golden Peacock HR Excellence Award by Institute of Directors (2017) as well as 'Asia's Best Integrated Report' award by the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards (2017), among several others.

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