What will it take to clean the Ganga?

The Government launched the first phase of the Ganga Action Plan (GAP-1) in 1986; 25 cities in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, along the stretch of the river, were selected. GAP-II was initiated in 1993; it included the river’s tributaries — the Yamuna, the Gomti, the Damodar and the Mahanadi.

The Ganga received the status of a ‘national river’ and GAP was reconstituted as the National Ganga River Basin Authority.

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.

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.

The horror does not end here. These cities have grown without planning and investment, and most do not have underground drainage networks. Even in Allahabad and Varanasi, 80 per cent of the areas are without sewers.

Waste is generated but not conveyed to treatment plants. There is no power to run treatment plants; bankrupt municipalities and water utilities have no money to pay for operations.

The CPCB checked 51 out of 64 sewage treatment plants (STPs) along the Ganga in 2013. It found that only 60 per cent of installed capacity of the plants was being used; 30 per cent of the STPs were not even operational.

So actual treatment is even less, and untreated waste discharged into the river even more.

The Ganga’s journey in Uttar Pradesh — from Kanpur through Unnao, Fatehpur to Raibareilly and then Allahabad and Varanasi via Mirzapur — is killing.

The river does not get the chance to assimilate the waste poured into it from cities and industries. It is only in Allahabad that some cleaner water is added through the Yamuna, which helps it to recover somewhat. Then, as it moves towards Varanasi, sewage is poured in again. It dies again.

Uttar Pradesh has 687 grossly polluting industries. These mainly small-scale, often illegal units — tanneries, sugar, pulp, paper and chemicals — contribute 270 mld of wastewater. But what really matters is the location of the plants. While over 400 tanneries contribute only 8 per cent of the industrial discharge, they spew highly toxic effluent into the river and are located as a cluster near Kanpur.

So the concentration of pollution is high. It is alarming that not much is happening to control pollution. The law is helpless.

In 2013, an inspection of 404 industrial units by the CPCB showed that all but 23 did not comply with the law. Directions have been issued and closure notices served. But it is business as usual.

Both dams and global warming worsen the problem. Built in 1854, the Haridwar dam has led to the Ganga’s decay by greatly diminishing the river flow.

The Farakka Barrage was built originally to divert fresh water into the Bhagirathi river but has since caused an increase of salinity in the Ganga, with damaging effects on ground water and soil.

The Government plans about 300 dams on the Ganga its tributaries despite a government-commissioned green panel report that has recommended scrapping 34 dams citing environmental concerns.

The Gangotri glacier which feeds the Ganga is one of the largest in the Himalayas. However, due to global warming, it has been receding since 1780; studies show its retreat quickened after 1971. Over the last 25 years, the glacier has retreated more than 850 metres, with a recession of 76 metres from 1996 to 1999. The UN 2007 Climate Change Report suggested that the glacial flow may completely stop by 2030, at which point the Ganga would be reduced to a seasonal river during the monsoon.

Cleaning the Ganga is a mammoth task. This should be contracted to an outside agency with absolute transparency in operation, credibility and accountability, with severe penalty if tangible results are not shown within a reasonable time-frame. It should not be left in Indian hands. Levying a fine of ₹5,000 for spitting in Ganga, as Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati has proposed, will simply not do.

The writer is a senior fellow of the Humboldt Foundation