The Ganga Action Plan of the 1980s and currently the Namami Gange programme with a Rs 20,000-crore outlay during 2015-2020 have set in motion many river cleaning activities, but their positive outcome is nowhere in sight. Being the fifth largest polluted river in the world, the Ganga is one of the many rivers originating in the Himalayas.

The Ganga basin with an area of about 1.09 million sq km spans across four countries ~ China, India, Nepal and Bangladesh ~ with about 80 per cent of the area within India. The basin area covers 10 states, has many tributaries, passes through many Tier I, Tier II cities, hundreds of towns, and thousands of villages.

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About 43 per cent of the total irrigated areas in India falls in the Gangetic basin. In the upstream there is a fragile ecosystem, and large-scale deforestation. Climate change also makes the predictability of the riverflow extremely uncertain.

The Ganga is a revered natural resource. It was given a ‘living entity” status by the Uttarakhand High Court in order to protect the river from relentless “abuse”. The pollution of the river is the result of industrial pollution, sewage (domestic) discharge, etc. Unlike easily manageable “point sources”, so-called of pollution, non-point sources come from different sources which are not easy to collect or treat.

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These include excess fertiliser or insecticides from agricultural land, toxic chemicals, sediment from improperly managed construction sites, acid drainage for abandoned mines, bacteria and nutrients from livestock etc.

It is very difficult to control non-point sources as these are not centrally located and can be a result of many factors.

The environmental flow of the river is very low due to its diversion as a result of extraction. For example, in Hardwar the net flow of the river is 31,000 cusecs, which is reduced to 4000 cusecs in Kanpur. In addition, indiscriminate dumping of waste on river banks including municipal solid waste, e-waste and even sludge aggravates the river pollution.

The total load of pollution in the river due to industrial effluents has increased to 669 million litres per day (MLD) during 2016-17 compared to 501 MLD during 2011-12. The domestic sewage pollution load has also gone up to 10705 MLD during 2016-17 compared to 6966 MLD during 2011-12. The quality of effluents violates the prescribed parameters to a large extent. For example, the faecal coliform carries a very high value against the prescribed 230 coliform per 100 mililitre of water.

There are high levels of biological demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and even heavy metals like zinc, cupper, etc. Out of 70 river water monitoring stations of the Central Pollution Control Board, only five areas are fit for drinking and seven for bathing (ENVIS 2018).

The National Green Tribunal’s order on 27 August 2018 cautions that ‘the situation is so alarming that from Hardwar to Kolkata, the water is neither fit for consumption nor for bathing’. Accordingly, it directed that the water quality information of the Ganga must be placed in the public domain so that the citizen is aware of its health aspects. The CAG’s audit report (2017) echoed a similar finding, “total coliform level in all cities of UP, Bihar, and West Bengal was very high, ranging from 6 to 334 times higher than the prescribed levels”. Thus, the river water even now is highly polluted.

The deteriorating water quality happened despite many initiatives of the governments. The thrust areas of the central government are ensuring aviraldhara (continuous flow), nirmaldhara (clean flow), river front development, capacity building, research and monitoring, protection of aquatic flora and fauna, and finally, awareness creation. On these parameters, the central government sanctioned projects worth Rs 22,238 crore during 2015 till 30 June 2018, compared to Rs 4000 crore spent during 1985-2015. In fact, 107 sewage infrastructure projects were identified in seven states (Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana and Delhi) covering 3295 MLD sewage treatment plant capacities. Of these, only 26 projects were completed. Thus, the progress is very slow.

Regarding aviraldhara, the central government in October 2018, issued a notification for ensuring a minimum flow of the Ganga in various seasons. In the upper Ganga river basin, starting from originating glaciers up to Hardwar, there should be a minimum flow of 20 per cent of monthly flow in the dry season, while during the high flow season, it should be 30 per cent of the monthly flow. The minimum flow releases immediately downstream of barrages at various locations on the Ganga mainstream should vary from 24-36 cumecs during the non-monsoon period, and 48-57 cumecs during the monsoon.

Experts, however, feel that this notified minimum flow is not adequate, as these have already been achieved without any river quality improvement. Hence there is need for enhanced minimum flow.

There are several challenges. First, the issues are : divergence of river action plan with broader development policies, challenges in experimenting with newer institutional models, lack of incentive structures with local bodies, wastage of funds, the complexity of monitoring technical parameters, evolving a robust regulating framework, non-performing assets and under-utilization of assets, non-implementation of septage management policy in the context of an open defecation-free scenario.

Further, the lack of proper supervision in terms of implementation, lack of coordination, lack of accountability, lack of adopting appropriate technology, disregarding the minimum environmental flow in the river throughout the year, unsustainable extraction of ground water, capacity deficiency, etc. are barriers to achieving positive results.

The Constitution of India mandates the central and state governments to provide both clean and decent environment and clean drinking water for the people (Article 48A, Art. 51 (A) (g), Article 21). The Supreme Court has also declared that the right to a decent and clean environment is a fundamental right.

Even citizens are mandated to make every effort to keep the environment clean and to protect forests, rivers and water bodies and to have compassion for living creatures. Thus it devolves on all stakeholders to ensure that the river water is clean.

To overcome the challenges for bringing about a clean Ganga by 2020, as per the government’s promise, a mass movement must be launched straightaway with the goal of achieving this within the target date.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow and Senior Director, Natural Resources and Climate, TERI, New Delhi, and a former Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, Govt. of India)