Write a letter to the editor expressing your anxiety on polluted river Ganga . Suggest some ways to clean it .
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Answer:
The relaunched GAP took into account the entire river basin and emphasised the river’s need to have adequate water to maintain its ecological flow.
Five years on, pollution levels in the Ganga are still grim. Rivers have the ability to clean themselves — to assimilate and treat biological waste using sunlight and oxygen. But the Ganga gets no time to breathe and revive itself.
The many people who live along its banks all take the water and return only waste. Ganga dies not once but many times in its 2,500-km journey from Gangotri in the Himalayas to Diamond Harbour in the Bay of Bengal.
Unholy stink
According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report of July 2013, the river shows unacceptable levels of E.coli, the most common bacteria — a clear sign of human excreta — all along the river’s mainstream.
It is worrying that faecal coliform levels are increasing even in the upper reaches such as Rudraprayag and Devprayag, where the river’s oxygenating ability is the highest. In these parts, water withdrawal for hydropower plants has put the river’s health in danger.
As the Ganga flows down the plains, water is taken away for irrigation and drinking, to the extent that during winter and peak summer months the river goes dry in many parts, and only sewage flows between its banks. The holy river is, thus, converted into a stinking sewer.
The reason for such high pollution is not far to seek. Thirty-six settlements, classified as Class-I cities, contribute 96 per cent of wastewater draining into the Ganga.
According to the CPCB’s 2013 report, 2,723 million litres per day (mld) of domestic sewage is discharged by cities located along the river. Even this may be a gross underestimation as the calculation is based just on the water that is supplied in the cities.
Without doubt, the capacity to treat this sewage is inadequate. But it is even smaller if we consider that the gap between sewage generation and treatment remains the same — 55 per cent.
So, even as treatment capacity is enhanced, more sewage gets added because of population growth.
The situation worsens if the actual measured discharge from drains is taken to estimate the pollution load. Then the gap between what is installed and what is generated goes up to 80 per cent.
Over and above this, 764 industrial units along the main stretch of the river and its tributaries the Kali and the Ramganga discharge 500 mld of mostly toxic waste. All efforts to rein in this pollution have failed.