The NGRBA needs another 10 years to Clean up The Ganga; Will it be Too Late by Then?
Like any other mother, River Ganga lets us get away with a lot of things. Our latest liberty has to do with an extension of deadline to rid her of the enormous amounts of trash and swill that she’s brimming with (courtesy other liberties that we take, like dumping our dead, and discharging all neighboring industrial sewage, into her waters). Last month, the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) presented a time frame of another 10 years to the Supreme Court of India, promising to clean up the Ganges by 2020. ‘Mission Clean Ganga’ has even roped in a consortium of the IITs hoping to make serious progress on the stated objective.
Much polluted water has flown under the bridge since the Central Ganga Authority (CGA) was formed in 1985 under the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, promulgating the Ganga Action Plan (GAP). GAP I graduated to GAP II in 1993, and GAP II was merged with National River Conservation Plan (NRCP) in December 1996, and now gaps are all that remain in the efforts to keep the nation’s most culturally and ecologically significant river system healthy.
Rakesh Jaiswal – tireless Ganga campaigner for the last 15 years, and founder of Kanpur-based NGO Eco Friends – lists “the depleting quantity of water downstream, owing to diversion of fresh water through canals” as the greatest threat to the Ganga. “Pollution is another important threat. Major contributors are Point Sources: 70% of the pollution can be attributed to sewage drains and 15% to industrial wastewater. Rest 15% is caused by Non-Point Sources (dead body dumping, dumping of worship materials, cattle wallowing, laundering of clothes, agricultural run-off etc.),” he adds.
Despite intercepting many guilty tanneries and factories on the riverbanks, and the commissioning of corrective infrastructure (sewage treatment plants [STPs], crematoria, pumping stations and the like) by the first and subsequent phases of GAP, the Ganga continues to flow like one big nullah or dumping ground. The presence of pathogenic fecal coliform bacteria – nearly ten thousand times the acceptable Indian Standard of 50-5000 Most Probable Number (MPN) per 100 ml of water in parts – and dangerously high levels of arsenic, lead and mercury make the mythically pure Ganga, believed to be capable of cleansing one of all sins with a mere sip, nothing more than a poisonous sludge snaking through the Northern Plains.
Like any other mother, River Ganga lets us get away with a lot of things. Our latest liberty has to do with an extension of deadline to rid her of the enormous amounts of trash and swill that she’s brimming with (courtesy other liberties that we take, like dumping our dead, and discharging all neighboring industrial sewage, into her waters). Last month, the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) presented a time frame of another 10 years to the Supreme Court of India, promising to clean up the Ganges by 2020. ‘Mission Clean Ganga’ has even roped in a consortium of the IITs hoping to make serious progress on the stated objective.
Much polluted water has flown under the bridge since the Central Ganga Authority (CGA) was formed in 1985 under the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, promulgating the Ganga Action Plan (GAP). GAP I graduated to GAP II in 1993, and GAP II was merged with National River Conservation Plan (NRCP) in December 1996, and now gaps are all that remain in the efforts to keep the nation’s most culturally and ecologically significant river system healthy.
Rakesh Jaiswal – tireless Ganga campaigner for the last 15 years, and founder of Kanpur-based NGO Eco Friends – lists “the depleting quantity of water downstream, owing to diversion of fresh water through canals” as the greatest threat to the Ganga. “Pollution is another important threat. Major contributors are Point Sources: 70% of the pollution can be attributed to sewage drains and 15% to industrial wastewater. Rest 15% is caused by Non-Point Sources (dead body dumping, dumping of worship materials, cattle wallowing, laundering of clothes, agricultural run-off etc.),” he adds.
Despite intercepting many guilty tanneries and factories on the riverbanks, and the commissioning of corrective infrastructure (sewage treatment plants [STPs], crematoria, pumping stations and the like) by the first and subsequent phases of GAP, the Ganga continues to flow like one big nullah or dumping ground. The presence of pathogenic fecal coliform bacteria – nearly ten thousand times the acceptable Indian Standard of 50-5000 Most Probable Number (MPN) per 100 ml of water in parts – and dangerously high levels of arsenic, lead and mercury make the mythically pure Ganga, believed to be capable of cleansing one of all sins with a mere sip, nothing more than a poisonous sludge snaking through the Northern Plains.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
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