Ganga — A story of Faith, Worship, Devotion and Pollution!
By Aakanksha Pathania
When I write the word ‘Ganga’, I am too scared to put a full stop ahead of it because Ganga should flow. Ganga has to flow, as it is the life support system of 8% of the world population ( over 600 million people) and is home to over 2000 aquatic species, including the threatened river dolphins, riverine turtles and gharials. With the basin covering 26% of India’s total geographical area and 43% of the total irrigated area, we have a lot at stake if anything happens to this lifeline.
Legend says the river was brought down to planet Earth by Lord Shiva. She is repeatedly mentioned in the Vedas, shastras and puranas. Mughal Emperor Akbar called it “the water of immortality”, the British East India Company used only Ganga water on their three-month journey back to England because the water stayed fresh. Ganga has always fascinated us with its self-cleansing properties.
Ganga’s magical water does not allow pathogens (disease causing microorganisms) to survive. Bacteriophages present in Ganga water act as a natural disinfectant. Additionally, the river has an extraordinary ability to retain oxygen, which is 25 times higher than any other river in the world. This high concentration of oxygen helps in breakdown of organic matter (both animal and human) into small nutrients. It can remove 60% of all organic waste dumped into the river in an hour while other rivers take days. This also helps sustain high fish population, which in turn sustains other living creatures. However, the rate at which Ganga continues to be polluted, it would soon be reduced to a large drain and would forever lose its identity of a holy river.
Ganga absorbs more than 2.9 billion litres of wastewater from sewage, domestic and industrial sources every day, thereby making it the second most polluted river in the world. A tributary of Ganga, Yamuna is next on the list.
Of all the wastewater that enters Ganga, 80% is sewage discharge of more than 50 cities located along the river. According to the state-run Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), untreated effluent from 764 industries and sewage from 56 cities and 31 towns is dumped into Ganga. Apart from this, around 1650 gram panchayats lie on the banks of the Ganga and half of the population in these villages still defecate in the open. The sewage they generate is almost entirely untreated.
This is not all. From hundreds of unwanted babies, cattle and animal carcases, to partially cremated bodies, all are dumped into the river with the belief that this is a direct pathway to heaven. As a result, the level of coliform bacteria in the river is over 2800 times the permissible limit considered safe by the World Health Organisation.
From the point of origin in Uttarakhand, the river crosses the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Together, these states generate over 7300 million litres of sewage per day that flows directly or indirectly into the river. Currently, the five states together have the capacity to treat only about 45% of the sewage generated by them. The rest flows into the river untreated. Pollution load from drains is highest in Uttar Pradesh, as compared to Bihar, West Bengal or Uttarakhand, as can be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Flow of the river from beginning to the end
SOURCE: ‘Ganga River Basin Management Plan, 2015’, prepared by the consortium of 7 IITs; National Mission for Clean Ganga; ‘Ganga Rejuvenation, Challenges and Required Interventions’, GoI. Graphic: Mithun Chakraborty
Cities like Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi are major contributors to the excessive pollution load in Ganga. Large parts of Kanpur and Varanasi are not even connected to the sewage network and the waste remains unaccounted for. This waste is called faecal sludge, which is the general term given to undigested or partially digested slurry or solids resulting from storage or treatment of excreta in the on-site sanitation systems (self containment within the site). It has a much greater pollution load and hence is much stronger than sewage in terms of its chemical and physical characteristics.
Clearly, there is an urgent need for effective Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) in Uttar Pradesh.
Census 2011 states that in Uttar Pradesh, households with septic tank based sanitation systems (47%) far exceed those with sewer connections (28%). All the faecal sludge generated by households connected to septic tanks, and those connected to pit latrines (both sanitary and insanitary), finds its way into open drains, which ultimately finds its way into the Ganga. 14% of all households in Uttar Pradesh resort to open defecation. In the absence of a treatment facility, faecal sludge of 36.41% households is disposed in the open agricultural fields.
What has been done so far?
The first effort to clean up Ganga dates back to 1986, when the initial phase of the Ganga Action Plan (GAP-I) was launched by the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. Under this plan, 35 sewage treatment plants (STPs) were built in the three most populous states along the river — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal — but their capacity was based on the population at that time. With the growing population, the STPs quickly became obsolete. In 1993, GAP-II was initiated which included the river’s tributaries — Yamuna, Gomti, Damodar and Mahanadi.
In 2009, GAP was re-launched and the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) was set up to ensure that no sewage or industrial effluents are released into Ganga. This is when the importance of environmental flows was highlighted. The concept of environmental flow refers to the quantity of water required to maintain river ecology under different environmental conditions.
However, all is not lost. The establishment of National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG- the implementation wing of NGRBA) in 2011, shows a commitment by the government to address the challenges associated with Ganga water pollution. The Namami Gange Programme, launched in 2014 under the union government focuses on abatement of pollution along with biodiversity conservation and rejuvenation of the river. The main pillar of this programme remains using a series of activities such as events, workshops, seminars and conferences to increase public outreach and community participation in the programme. It is only when people become one with the river, they will understand the gravity of the situation. Apart from this, Uttarakhand high court’s recent declaration of Ganga and Yamuna as living entities could speed up the efforts involved in cleaning the pollution-choked dying rivers.
The objectives in the past 30-odd years have remained the same: abatement of pollution and conservation of the river. But despite these efforts, the pollution levels are on the rise.
Is it too late? Or is there still some hope?
There is too much waste and too little water in Ganga today. The river needs water to dilute the enormous waste that flows into it. Hence, it is important to maintain the environmental flows and to ensure that the water that flows into the river does not end up polluting it further. Therefore, within a city, efforts should be made to collect monsoon water, within its territory and ensure that it finds its way into the river.
Most cities that Ganga passes through are heavily populated. As a result, the cost of building conventional sewerage networks at the required scale and pace is a challenge task. Today the estimated cost of building an STP ranges from INR 1–1.25 crore/MLD (exclusive of the land cost), much higher than what it was in the year 2000 (INR 30–60 lakh). At the same time, the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) lack sufficient funding that is required for the operation and maintenance of these STPs, which ultimately leads them to being underutilised.
Recent Australian study shows that decentralised systems are more cost effective as compared to centralised systems, when evaluated on the basis of life cycle costs and benefits from effluent re-use (Abeysuriya et al. 2007). Increased decentralized technologies would eliminate the need for expensive trunk-lines, STPs and other infrastructure. It would also promote ownership and local involvement in treatment technologies as well as generate livelihoods.
While the current trend of the country remains to construct toilets, the effectiveness of their usage still remains an unsolved mystery. In 2014, Rice Institute’s SQUAT survey of rural open defecation challenges in five north Indian states highlighted that despite having functional toilets at home, there were 40% households where at least one member defecated in the open. Therefore, the need of the hour is to invest on long-term behavioural and attitudinal change among people, intensification of community education and awareness campaigns.
It is also critical that the drains are developed as in situ treatment zones. According to the City Sanitation Plan of Varanasi, the wastewater in the drains is diluted because of flow from household septic tanks and therefore, it is possible to clean these drains and to develop them as open treatment facilities.
Lastly, polluting Ganga and obstructing its natural flow needs to be made illegal. Lack of a legislative mandate is the primary reason behind the poor state that the river is in. The implementation of the Polluter Pays Principle, which is an important principle for environmental law and governance in the world, still remains weak.
Cleaning Ganga is a major government campaign but it needs the support of the masses beyond any religion or faith. This is an emergency needing immediate action failing which the loss that the nation will incur will be irreparable for the present as well as future generations.
Aakanksha Pathania is an environmental enthusiast and is currently consulting with Policy Team at WaterAid India. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and does not necessarily represent the point of view of WaterAid India.
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