Cleaning the Ganga

The Ganga is the holy river that flows into the heart of India. The civilization of India is also widely believed to have flourished alongside the Ganga river. Despite the cultural and economic significance of the Ganga, we have failed to maintain its pious nature. Today the river is one of the polluted rivers in India.

The government initiated a plethora of initiatives to revive the Ganga. The Ganga Action Plan, 1986 is one of the landmark measures that the government solemnly undertook to purify Ganga. The current political dispensation at the Centre had invested much of its political capital in its election campaigns so as to revive the Ganga. Ironically, revival of Ganga was one of the prior agendas in its election manifesto. The government has set up committees and roped in the academicia and corporate sector to clean the river.

The essay deals with the causes of pollution of the river and the necessary solutions to cleanse the Ganga. One of the foremost causes of pollution is due to the untreated sewage that is discharged into the river. Not only the industries (tannery or paper industry) discharge untreated sewage but also the municipal bodies are equally, if not more, responsible for the deteriorated state of Ganga river. The sewage treatment plants(STPs) have been installed but they remain mostly inoperative. Delhi, alone, has only 20 percent of its Sewage Treatment Plants(STPs) that are fully operational wherein the sewage is subjected to primary, secondary and tertiary treatment processes.

Second, activities that disrupt the natural flow of the rivers also have deleterious impact on the quality of water. The construction of river-valley projects or change in the course of the river also pollute the river. Third, cultural factors like dumping of dead bodies in the river as a matter of religious rituals also pollute the river. The Ganga river along the temple towns like Varanasi is polluted as a result.

The government has done well to list the name of industries which dump waste in the river and penalize its officials. However, the government has the obligation to set its own house in order. It must ensure that the municipal corporations are technologically well equipped to dispose the waste in an eco-friendly manner. An excessive dependence on land-fills has negative impacts like pollution of ground water through underground seepage of hazardous chemicals. Therefore, innovative measures like incineration, gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion should be taken up.

There is a need of proper impact assessment of the infrastructure projects like dams that are built across the rivers. The nation-wide hydrological data could be used to determine the flow pattern of the rivers so that adequate safeguards are ensured to maintain the natural flow of river water. The rivers need to be accorded legal rights so that the self-purificating ability of the water is maintained throughout its course.