What Will it Take to Clean Up the Ganga?
Rs 20,000 crore later, India's holiest river remains one of its dirtiest. Cleaning the Ganga--a promise made by Narendra Modi to the people of Varanasi--needs great political will and decisive action, reports M Rajshekhar
When he gives his report card to the people of India, as he promised in Parliament earlier this week, one of the metrics on which Narendra Modi will be judged is whether he reduced the numbers that scream environmental squalor in the graphic here.The graphic shows India’s holiest river, the Ganga, and its 2,525 km descent from the mountains to the sea, passing through towns and cities in four states.
The numbers show how the Ganga fares on a common metric used to measure the health of rivers: the density of coliform bacteria. Ideally, this should be below 5,000 per 100 ml. But, as the graphic shows, this is alarmingly higher at most places.
In Varanasi, where Modi made a pitch that moulded electoral strategy and religious symbolism, the figure is 58,000 per 100 ml—11.6 times over the acceptable limit, as per 2011 data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The member of Parliament from Varanasi and PM-designate has promised to reduce this, not just in the sacred town of Vanarasi, but across the length of the river.
So far, Rs 20,000 crore has gone into the cleaning of the Ganga—most of it down the drain. From household waste to construction debris, from used irrigation water containing fertiliser and pesticides to industrial waste, from people bathing in the river to ashes immersed in it, the Ganga is abused.
“Not even a drop of sewage should reach Gangaji,“ says Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, chairperson, Sankat Mochan Foundation, which has championed several clean-up initiatives in Varanasi. However, even local projects are stuck for want of administrative and political support. The people of Varanasi are eagerly waiting for Modi to make good on his promise.
The question is: how?
Waste In Water Till now, India has followed a relatively simple approach to clean up the Ganga--or, for that matter, any of its rivers. It has acted on the assumption that preventing pollution is sufficient to restore the river.
Accordingly, India has been setting up effluent and sewage treatment plants, which clean up waste water before releasing it, along rivers like the Ganga.
The outcomes of the Rs 20,000 crore spent shows this approach has not worked.The drive to eradicate pollution has not equalled the scale of the problem. This was acknowledged in February in the Rajya Sabha by outgoing environment minister Veerappa Moily while replying to a question from BJP MP Smriti Irani on the amount of sewage generated (and treated) by towns along the Ganga. Citing CPCB numbers, Moily said 2.7 billion litres of sewage was generated every day by class 1 and class 2 cities along the river, but only 1.2 billion litres of treatment capacity existed. In other words, 55% of the sewage generated was dumped-untreated --into the Ganga.
There are also inequalities at work. Class 1 cities (like Kanpur and Patna) in the states the Ganga flows through have installed capacity to process 41-52% of their waste. However, in smaller towns, this dips to anything from zero to 30%.
In 2009, figuring the old model is not working, the ministry of environment created a new body--the National Ganga River Basin Authority. However, it proposed to add additional sewage treatment capacity of 566 million litres per day--half the shortfall that existed in 2012. “The absence of political will has ensured that the cleaning up work yields no results,“ says BD Tripathi, member, National Ganga River Basin Authority.
None of this is unique to the Ganga. It is estimated that India's cities and towns generate 38.2 billion litres of sewage every day. And the country has the installed capacity to treat just 11.8 billion litres--31% of what it needs.
The amount of waste actually treated would be lower, as plants usually run below installed capacity. A CPCB study last August to measure capacity utilisation of sewage treatment plants in 15 states found they averaged 66% usage. Environment is not a priority for governments. “When the Ganga and Yamuna Action Plans were created, the initial funds to set up treatment plants came from the Centre,“ says Manoj Mishra, convenor of Delhi's Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan. “But thereafter, the maintenance had to be done by state governments.“
Restoring Nature Other than capacity figures, data is scarce. In 201112, the Comptroller & Auditor General, the national auditor, surveyed water pollution in India. It found the Central ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and a number of states “did not carry out identification of existing pollution levels in rivers and lakes in terms of biological indicators (like coliform)“. Also missing were studies on how rivers, major aquatic species, birds, plants and animals are affected by pollution. “As such, MoEF/CPCB was unaware of the risks being faced by the environment as a result of pollution of rivers and lakes,“ concluded CAG.
Here, even state governments are to blame. The CAG report says that no state has identified species at risk due to river pollution. And only seven have studied the risks to human health arising from river pollution. This absence of data, says CAG, “would have repercussions on implementation of programmes for control of pollution.“
According to Mishra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, even if anti-pollution facilities come up in the numbers needed, they cannot revive the river on their own. “Pollution abatement is not the same as river restoration,“ he says. “A river has an ecosystem. It is not a canal. Unless you restore all its components, what you will have is a canal.“
India's rivers are seeing three forms of pollution: organic pollution like sewage; industrial effluents with chemicals; and fertiliser/pesticidetainted irrigation waters from farmlands. Mishra says a free-flowing river on its own can handle the first but not the other two. “A river can take care of the organic pollution if it has enough water,” he says. “But the other two—heavy metals and inorganic chemicals—the river doesn’t know what to do with them.” The minimum amount of water a river needs to perform its basic functions is referred to as its ecological flow. Tripathi says the real issue is increasing the river flow and ensuring the “selfpurifying” capacity of a river is allowed to work.
But that is not happening. “Look at the Ganga,” says Manoj Mishra. “There are three large barrages on the river— at Haridwar, Bijnor and Narora—which divert 100% of the river’s water. By Kanpur, the only water in the river is sewage. In Allahabad, the Yamuna meets the Ganga and revives it to some extent.” Ideally, he says: “No polluted water should return to the river. It should be recycled.
If Singapore can do this, why cannot we? At the most, only polluted organic should be allowed to return to the river.” That’s what Modi, member of Parliament from Varanasi and PM designate, will have to do.
With inputs from Akshay Deshmane
The numbers show how the Ganga fares on a common metric used to measure the health of rivers: the density of coliform bacteria. Ideally, this should be below 5,000 per 100 ml. But, as the graphic shows, this is alarmingly higher at most places.
In Varanasi, where Modi made a pitch that moulded electoral strategy and religious symbolism, the figure is 58,000 per 100 ml—11.6 times over the acceptable limit, as per 2011 data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The member of Parliament from Varanasi and PM-designate has promised to reduce this, not just in the sacred town of Vanarasi, but across the length of the river.
So far, Rs 20,000 crore has gone into the cleaning of the Ganga—most of it down the drain. From household waste to construction debris, from used irrigation water containing fertiliser and pesticides to industrial waste, from people bathing in the river to ashes immersed in it, the Ganga is abused.
“Not even a drop of sewage should reach Gangaji,“ says Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, chairperson, Sankat Mochan Foundation, which has championed several clean-up initiatives in Varanasi. However, even local projects are stuck for want of administrative and political support. The people of Varanasi are eagerly waiting for Modi to make good on his promise.
The question is: how?
Waste In Water Till now, India has followed a relatively simple approach to clean up the Ganga--or, for that matter, any of its rivers. It has acted on the assumption that preventing pollution is sufficient to restore the river.
Accordingly, India has been setting up effluent and sewage treatment plants, which clean up waste water before releasing it, along rivers like the Ganga.
The outcomes of the Rs 20,000 crore spent shows this approach has not worked.The drive to eradicate pollution has not equalled the scale of the problem. This was acknowledged in February in the Rajya Sabha by outgoing environment minister Veerappa Moily while replying to a question from BJP MP Smriti Irani on the amount of sewage generated (and treated) by towns along the Ganga. Citing CPCB numbers, Moily said 2.7 billion litres of sewage was generated every day by class 1 and class 2 cities along the river, but only 1.2 billion litres of treatment capacity existed. In other words, 55% of the sewage generated was dumped-untreated --into the Ganga.
There are also inequalities at work. Class 1 cities (like Kanpur and Patna) in the states the Ganga flows through have installed capacity to process 41-52% of their waste. However, in smaller towns, this dips to anything from zero to 30%.
In 2009, figuring the old model is not working, the ministry of environment created a new body--the National Ganga River Basin Authority. However, it proposed to add additional sewage treatment capacity of 566 million litres per day--half the shortfall that existed in 2012. “The absence of political will has ensured that the cleaning up work yields no results,“ says BD Tripathi, member, National Ganga River Basin Authority.
None of this is unique to the Ganga. It is estimated that India's cities and towns generate 38.2 billion litres of sewage every day. And the country has the installed capacity to treat just 11.8 billion litres--31% of what it needs.
The amount of waste actually treated would be lower, as plants usually run below installed capacity. A CPCB study last August to measure capacity utilisation of sewage treatment plants in 15 states found they averaged 66% usage. Environment is not a priority for governments. “When the Ganga and Yamuna Action Plans were created, the initial funds to set up treatment plants came from the Centre,“ says Manoj Mishra, convenor of Delhi's Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan. “But thereafter, the maintenance had to be done by state governments.“
Restoring Nature Other than capacity figures, data is scarce. In 201112, the Comptroller & Auditor General, the national auditor, surveyed water pollution in India. It found the Central ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and a number of states “did not carry out identification of existing pollution levels in rivers and lakes in terms of biological indicators (like coliform)“. Also missing were studies on how rivers, major aquatic species, birds, plants and animals are affected by pollution. “As such, MoEF/CPCB was unaware of the risks being faced by the environment as a result of pollution of rivers and lakes,“ concluded CAG.
Here, even state governments are to blame. The CAG report says that no state has identified species at risk due to river pollution. And only seven have studied the risks to human health arising from river pollution. This absence of data, says CAG, “would have repercussions on implementation of programmes for control of pollution.“
According to Mishra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, even if anti-pollution facilities come up in the numbers needed, they cannot revive the river on their own. “Pollution abatement is not the same as river restoration,“ he says. “A river has an ecosystem. It is not a canal. Unless you restore all its components, what you will have is a canal.“
India's rivers are seeing three forms of pollution: organic pollution like sewage; industrial effluents with chemicals; and fertiliser/pesticidetainted irrigation waters from farmlands. Mishra says a free-flowing river on its own can handle the first but not the other two. “A river can take care of the organic pollution if it has enough water,” he says. “But the other two—heavy metals and inorganic chemicals—the river doesn’t know what to do with them.” The minimum amount of water a river needs to perform its basic functions is referred to as its ecological flow. Tripathi says the real issue is increasing the river flow and ensuring the “selfpurifying” capacity of a river is allowed to work.
But that is not happening. “Look at the Ganga,” says Manoj Mishra. “There are three large barrages on the river— at Haridwar, Bijnor and Narora—which divert 100% of the river’s water. By Kanpur, the only water in the river is sewage. In Allahabad, the Yamuna meets the Ganga and revives it to some extent.” Ideally, he says: “No polluted water should return to the river. It should be recycled.
If Singapore can do this, why cannot we? At the most, only polluted organic should be allowed to return to the river.” That’s what Modi, member of Parliament from Varanasi and PM designate, will have to do.
With inputs from Akshay Deshmane
Source:http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid=31816&dt=20140522
