Cleaning and protecting Ganga - a forgotten pledge,June 5, 2014, Times of India

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TNN | Jun 5, 2014, 11.12 AM IST.

Every year people observe the World Environment Day on June 5 and pledge to protect the environment and keep the rivers clean but fail to follow it in a long run. Many people are not even aware of how they are harming the environment. People who come to take holy dip in the river Ganga use soap, wash clothes and also dump flowers and devotional articles knowingly and sometimes unknowingly causing great harm to a river they respect most. "What is wrong in it," wondered a man bathing at Dashashwamedh Ghat when asked as to why he was using soap in the Ganga. He was not alone but many people like him used soap without realizing that they were polluting the river. It seems that the call of new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who promised to clean Ganga, went in vain. "Any activist that pollutes the river should be denounced and discouraged. Besides, the discharge of sewage and industrial waste, which adversely affect the river and its aquatic life, should be stopped," said Prof BD Tripathi, noted environmental scientist at Banaras Hindu University and expert member of National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), adding that the middle stretch of the Ganga from Haridwar to Varanasi is biologically very productive. A study conducted under Ganga River Basin Environment Management Plan by a consortium of seven IITs suggests that the productivity of the middle Ganga is due to the presence of higher concentration of nutrients, warm water and meandering river, flood plains and reduced flow velocities. According to the study on 'Floral and faunal diversity in middle Ganga segment from Haridwar to Varanasi,' it supports over 700 species. But, the study report of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) suggests that the Ganga water is highly polluted between Kanpur and Varanasi. According to Tripathi, discharge of wastewater is the major reason behind the increasing pollution of the Ganga. In Varanasi alone, over 200 MLD untreated sewage is discharged into the river. Besides, the reducing flow is another factor that harms the river. "Proper policy should be adopted to increase water quantity and maintenance of ecological flow, rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharging, natural cleaning, extraction of water directly from the river and groundwater and land use near banks," said Tripathi further adding that there was also an urgent need to educate people about the protection of river and environment.