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Is Ganga Cleaner Now?

prasad1

Active member
Two things we have to define.
Cleaner and Now.

The sacred and mighty Ganga originates from the bottom of the eastern Himalayas, Gomukh and crosses the Gangetic Plain of North India reaching Bangladesh. It is the lifeline of millions of Indians, not only because of its functionality but due to spiritual and religious reasons too. While the glaciers release clean and transparent water, it becomes sluggish and dirty in its course and gets polluted to its core till it reached the Bay of Bengal. The pollution of the river Ganga has been an issue since decades and was one of the top agendas of the then Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.

A per some of the media reports dated 29th Dec 2017, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration committed $3 billion in 2015 for a five-year project to clean the 2,525-km (1,570-mile) river that remains heavily polluted despite being a water source for 400 million people.”

His action plans included Rs 20, 000 crore Namami Gange project to reduce pollution of the river. And, right after taking the oath, PM Modi changed the name of the ministry responsible for cleaning Ganga, and named it, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation”. Simultaneously, he formed National Ganga Council for rejuvenation and management of Ganga.

But all these efforts seem to be fruitless, as Ganga gets polluted at every inch it crosses, waste from thousands of factories are released into the river without any treatment. Almost 3/4th of sewage water is also released in the Ganga and thus making it unfit for human use. Innumerable slaughterhouses and hospitals dispose of their waste in the river, the untreated toxins like chromium from leather factories also contribute to polluting the river. Thus, the National River of India, Ganga is facing threat from several fronts and is struggling to not top the list of the most polluted rivers in the world.

While the NDA government made policies and announced them with great pride, like many other projects, their execution failed at various levels. The National Mission for Clean Ganga planned to give projects for the treatment of the sewage water but even till the end of the last year, it failed to meet its target in approving projects. And, Ganga’s decreasing volume due to diversion for irrigation is still a great problem for the ministry.

However, as per Nitin Gadkari, who was later brought into the picture because of his ‘fire-fighting’ approach to meet deadlines, government agencies did not perform at par with the expectations and the lackadaisical bureaucracy became of the hurdles to the success. He said, “251 Gross Polluting Industries (GPI) has been closed and closure directions have been issued to non-complying GPIs,” and also added, “Real-time monitoring of pollutions is being done in 938 industries. As many as 211 main ‘Nallas’ have been identified which are causing pollution in Ganga and 20 modular STPs are being deployed to treat Nalla water. Regular review meetings with all the states government officials, contractors, consultants are being done and obstacles regarding DPR’s, tendering process, finalization of design, payment to contractors are being removed for speedy completion of projects”.

Though, it was unfortunate that despite all these initiative, he had to agree that improper management funds and execution works during the initial days of the campaign forced the government to revise its target. As per Mr. Gadkari, the NDA government would be able to complete 70-80% cleaning of the river Ganga by the year 2019.

The major reason for the slow growth of the cleaning process of Ganga is the lack of coordination between the Centre and the states. The state board, Nagar Nigam, and private bodies – all have to function in a compatible zone for the maximum output, which is not found in this case. This leads to the slow progress of the projects. As of now, we don’t see much happening that could clean the river. The only ray of hope is a social awareness campaign that could pressurize the people and government to work for cleaning Ganga.

 
A close friend of mine visited Varanasi and Patna.
According to him, Ganga in Varanasi is highly polluted, Ganga in Patna appears to be much cleaner.

My cousin an ardent Modi supporter believes that Ganga is getting cleaner every day, and he visits Varanasi every year.

I visited Varanasi 50 years ago, and the images are still vivid in my mind.
My mother was frustrated that I took a cleansing shower in the hotel after taking a forced dip in Ganga.

So I guess it is matter of opinion.
I could not find any scientific study by an impartial body.
 
Here are some points regarding status of clean Ganga Project started by Narendra Modi:

  1. Over 7000 crores spend till December, 2017 to clean 500KM stretch of Ganga
  2. According to National Green Tribunal there is NO improvement in condition of Ganga till date.
  3. According to Government deadline, Ganga will be clean by 2018. How? No one knows.
  4. In September 2017 charge of Water Resource Ministry is transferred from Uma Bharti to Nitin Gadkari.
 
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HIGHLIGHTS
  • Only 58 of the 221 sanctioned projects to clean the river are complete
  • 26 of 105 sewage treatment projects are complete
  • Target of cleaning "70 to 80 per cent" by March 2019 looks very unlikely

In July, India Today had reported how pollution levels in river Ganga at Varanasi's ghats are higher than the levels recorded back in 2014 when the Modi government launched its most ambitious Namami Gange initiative to clean up the river.

To find out more about the status regarding cleaning the country's holiest river, India Today filed another RTI application with the Ganga Rejuvenation Ministry. We asked about new projects initiated to clean the Ganga, money that was allocated towards these projects, their completion date and their likely impact.

In response, the Government of India said, "a total of Rs 20,000 crore has been allocated for this project to be spend over the next five years (2020)." It further said that "till date, under Namami Gange programme, a total of 221 projects have been sanctioned for various activities such as the treatment of municipal sewage, treatment of industrial effluent, river surface cleaning, etc. at a total cost of Rs 22,238.73 crore, out of which 58 projects have been completed."

This means an additional Rs 2,238.73 crore has been sanctioned towards the allocated fund and more than one and half year is still to go. Only one fourth of the sanctioned projects are complete.

On sewage treatment plants, the RTI response said, "Till date, a total of 105 sewerage infrastructure and STP projects have been sanctioned which will prevent 3293.68 MLD (million litres per day) of untreated sewage discharging directly into river Ganga. A total of 26 projects have been completed so far." Here too, only one fourth of the sanctioned projects have been completed.

The Government further said, "the projects taken up so far will take care of all the interventions required in respect of sewage treatment requirement till year 2035 on the main stem of river Ganga."

In May 2018, Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari had set March 2019 as the new deadline to clean river Ganga and ensure a "70 to 80 per cent" improvement in its water quality.

With only one fourth of sanctioned projects being completed till August 2018, how can the government achieve this miracle in the next 6-7 months? Cleaning the Ganga was one of the major poll promises of the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Going by the government's own status report, it looks very unlikely that it will be able to fulfil its promise.

In response to India Today's RTI expose, the government said, "NMCG is committed to achieving its goals of a clean Ganga and is working towards it in a mission mode. With the ongoing hectic pace of execution and implementation of the projects, the target of cleaning Ganga is likely to be accomplished at the earliest."

 
The recent death of the leather industry in Kanpur should help.
Leather industry was one of the major polluters.
 
Ganage was never polluted in short time and will never get cleaned in short time . Efforts are being taken and we must appreciate that and hope within the next decade we can see Ganga fairly clean
 
Lot of fake messages with regard to Ganges being cleaned is being circulated now . Better to share the facts ( plus and minus ) to have a proper understanding on this issue
 
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During last week of January 2019 I was in varanasi. I found that the ghats were clean and neat. As I am visiting varanasi every year I find that there is drastic improvement and now mother Ganges is very neat and clean in this area. I found that most of the overhead cables have gone underground and Kasi is more neat and clean. Whoever does this deserves encouragement. Hats off to them
 

Maybe the word cleaner is not understood properly.
from 0% clean tp 1% cleaner is definitely cleaner, but is it enough?
Maybe the expectation of people was so low that any improvement is better than nothing.
 
Varanasi based environmentalist and Gandhian Jagriti Rahi of the Saajha Sanskriti Manch said river Ganga is nothing but a commodity for the government.

“They (government) have nothing to do with the environment and ecology of Ganga. Will Ganga just be revived for Kumbh and then left to die afterwards?” questioned Rahi.

Last year, in an order related to cleaning of the Ganga river, the NGT had noted that even after spending of billions of rupees the status of the Ganga has not improved in terms of quality or otherwise and it continues to be a serious environmental issue.

Hemant Dhyani, an environmentalist who has been working for cleaning and protection of river Ganga, criticised the central government for failing to clean it.

“The strict CPCB directions, which are telling the state governments to ensure that polluted water does not flow in Ganga, clearly shows that the quality of Ganga’s water is not satisfactory at all. That is why CPCB had to issue such directions to stop industrial effluents from flowing into the river. It just means that they want to manage it just during Kumbh and then can be allowed to continue, as usual, after it,” said Dhyani.

 
Folks, i have said this earlier. Nothing ever gets delivered through our bureaucracy.

So to expect things will change due to the new political leadership is only wishful thinking.

And even if they have cleaned by 1%, in another few months, people will pollute the river all over again.

So nothing ever moves with our bureaucrazies !!
 

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