Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi are part of the 22 river cities from Uttar Pradesh that will take part in the two-day "Dhara 2023" conference kicking off from Monday, Feb 13 in Pune.

The international conference, which will focus on devising strategies for managing urban rivers, is being organized by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and National Institute for Urban Affairs (NIUA).

Experts in urban river management from the Netherlands, Australia, Israel, Japan, US and Denmark will be present at the conference along with principle secretaries from different Indian states. Innovative techniques for urban river management will be showcased at the event in the form of case studies on well-executed river management strategies implemented throughout the nation.

The Dhara 2023 conference, which will also focus on emphasizing the need for urban river management plans, will offering a slew of solutions to the attending principle secretaries that they can take back to their cities and implement to ensure better urban river management. Groundwater management, flood control and used water management will make up the long list of topics that will be discussed.

All 22 participating river cities from Uttar Pradesh are part of the River Cities Alliance (RCA), which came into existence with 30 cities to provide a platform to river cities in India to discuss challenges and exchange ideas on urban river management. Today, the RCA has 95 member cities.

The list of 22 cities from UP that will feature in Dhara 2023 includes Ayodhya, Mazzafarnagar, Jhansi, Shahjahanpur, Saharanpur, Jaunpur, Kannauj, Lucknow, Agra, Etawah, Bareilly, Bijnor, Brindavan, Moradabad, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Mirzapur, Mathura, Farrukhabad, Ghaziabad and Gorakhpur.