The Holy Drain- A Case on Ganga Pollution



Ganga
is the second-largest river in the world and the largest river of our country, is also known as the holy river of India. Almost 40% of India’s population is
using the water of the river but as urbanization increased and industrial
development started the water quality of Ganga decreased. And now in the modern
era, it is known as the polluted river. On 14 January 1986, Rajeev Gandhi
launched the mission, the Ganga Action plan for the first time. The main
objective of the plan was to reduce the level of pollution, to improve the
quality of water by the treatment and redirection of domestic waste products, and wastage of industrial chemicals from identifying the total pollution units
in the river.






Causes of pollution



The
cause of river pollution depends on the wide population and it totally depends
on them because directly and indirectly, they are the reason for polluting the
Ganga. 



●      The industrialisation has become a big
issue for polluting the river. They generally build factories near the river
and their waste material directly mixes with the water and pollutes the river.



●      
Religious practice has also become an issue for pollution because people throw everything related to god in the water
like flowers and submerge the remains after a funeral.



●      
 Social practices also add pollution to the
river. Dead bodies usually are burnt on the banks of rivers and bodies, which
are partially burnt, are flung into it. Carcasses of animals are usually
discarded in the river.



●      
India’s most population is engaged in
agriculture and the fertilizer used by the farmer has become an issue because
when it mixes with the river it pollutes the water.



Effect of water pollution



This
massive pollution of the river causes crucial health issues and can develop
diseases like cholera, hepatitis, typhoid, and diarrhea. This river is the only
source of water and to reduce the pollution the government should take a strict
plan and process. Water is the basic need for the life of human beings.
Research by National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) in 2012, indicated that
those living near the banks of the Ganga river like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal
are more likely to suffer from cancer than anywhere else in the country.
Freshwater dolphins are found in the Ganges River, which is one of the few
species in the world, but the pollution of the river has become the main reason
for their decreasing population.



Objectives of the Ganga Action
Plan: 



●      
Control of agricultural runoff, human
excretion, wallowing of cattle in the mud and throwing the wastage into the
river



●      
Experimentation and improvement to
spread the biotic diversity of the river to increase its productivity



●      
New technology for the treatment of
waste products like Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) and treatment of
the waste material through reforestation has been developed successfully.



●       Recovery
of resource options like the manufacture of methane for energy generation.

The
control over the throwing of partially burnt bodies and unburnt bodies into the
water and the exploration and improvement to preserve the biotic. There is a
need for new technology to manage sewage and waste material. The process of the
management of the integrated river basin in view of the various dynamic
reactions between biotic and abiotic systems which is the eventual objective of
the Ganga Action Plan (GAP), but the initiative was taken by the government has
failed due to inappropriate planning of Environment, insignificant
collaboration between central, state and local government, lack of awareness
and technology. And that is how the first attempt of the government to clean
the river Ganga failed. So, in 1993 Ganga Action Plan II was launched and
this plan included the river Gomati, Yamuna, and major small rivers of Ganga.
It was launched mainly for decreasing the pollution of the river Gomati, the Yamuna, and other small rivers of Ganga, and this program was further extended
to include the other major river of India in 1995 under the protection of the National River Conservation Plan (NRCP). And like the Ganga Action Plan (GAP),
this NRCP also had the same objective that is to decrease the pollution from
the river. The objective of the plan was the same but the organization has
taken a better and improved version for the development. The recent prime
minister of India Narendra Modi declared to work on the project of cleaning the
river and later on the “Namami Gange” project was affirmed by the government in
the June 2014 budget. The government has launched now the“Clean Ganga project”
with the aim to clean up all the rivers of the nation.