The houseful sign was up at the Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC) at Churchgate on a Thursday afternoon, while Nitin Gadkari, minister for shipping, road transport and highways, water resources, river development and Ganga Rejuvenation spoke on 'Development of Infrastructure and Ganga Rejuvenation'.

IMC president Raj Nair in his introduction said, "To truly understand the importance of a river, one needs to spend a day in the desert." Nair also said cleaning up the Ganga, "is really a precursor to cleaning the entire network of rivers in India," and recalled a time when, "we could drink water from streams. My generation spoilt that for future generations. Today, our children cannot believe that we could drink water from rivers and streams." Nair also made a plea to the minister for help for IMC members to get seats on the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) and Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) boards, bringing their expertise to the board, ending his talk with, "no water equals no life and no clean Ganga means no India."