Revitalizing India's sacred rivers, Part 1: A brief on government action

Indian civilization like almost every other major civilization on the planet was built on the banks of rivers. For most Indians, rivers are held sacred and no river is more sacred than the Ganga. It is arguably the most vital drainage system to humankind than any other, serving more than 500 million people directly for drinking and irrigation. Yet it remains one of the most polluted rivers in the world, Other rivers like Kaveri, Mahanadi, and Narmada don't do much better either. In fact, rivers in Maharashtra are much more polluted than Ganga.  As for Ganga, Uttarakhand is lucky to the only state which can safely use its water for domestic purposes (ie bathing quality)

Rightly so, the dire state of these rivers has caught the attention of people from all spectrum of life; from residents to domestic pilgrims to International organizations. Cashing in on the dream for a cleaner Ganga, prominent politicians have made sweeping campaign promises followed by rigorous action plans, but the overall situation never improved. While earlier plans were riddled with low funding, ( around  4,000 crores from 1980-2014  were allocated ), corruption and lack of expertise, present plans have been having its own shortcomings, like spending only 25 % of 20,000 crore rupees budget with self set deadlines looming in 2020, PPP (public-private partnership) model for sewage plants which will be transferred to states after 5 years of operation.

Protecting the sanctity of Ganga began even before India became independent. But the first major government plan was launched by Congress's  Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 in the form of Ganga Action plan (GAP). The plan intended to cut the source of pollutants from reaching the river by treating it in sewage plants. This plan was extended to other river systems, nonetheless despite 2000 of crore being spent on this plan. Despite these efforts, the pollution only got worse than it was before, owing to growing population which outpaced sewage treatment capacity installations and the arrival of industries in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal. Failure of GAP can best be illustrated using Kanpur as example, wherein the government built sewage capacity of 150 million liters per day (MLD), while the estimated discharge for Kanpur in 1993 was about 400 MLD, further due to lack of sewage tunnels these plants were underutilized and were being only fed 80-100 MLD of sewage per day. Additionally, more than 31 MLD of toxic wastewater for Kanpur’s Leather industries went untreated. Realizing the scale of the problem in hand the government shifted its goal from making Ganga drinkable to bath able

Later in 2009, worsening conditions of the holy river led to the rebranding of GAP in the form of NGRBA ( National Ganga River Basin Authority), an authority responsible for planning, financing and implementing actions to rejuvenating Ganga. It was chaired by politicians, judges, and technical members and attracted funds form World Bank and promised that there would be no untreated sewage flowing into Ganga by 2020. While GAP lacked enough funding and provided important lessons in implementation, NGRBA was a futile effort in itself while the government navigated itself from one scam to another. NGRBA will be likely be remembered for declaring Ganga National river and nothing more.

Many hopes were raised when Narendra Modi swept the elections in 2014, promising to emulate the Gujarat model of development on a national scale. Many memes, where shared about Sabarmati in Ahmadabad, Modi even took Shinzo Abe of Japan to Varanasi to offer prayers to the Ganga. Much of that hope was dashed when firebrand politician Sadvi Uma Bharati was made Minister of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation. NGRBA was promptly shelved for much potent  Namami Ganga, NMCG and Clean Ganga Fund with a  budget of 20,000 crores in total.

4,800 Crores of which were allocated for building sewage plants under PPP model, promising to run it for 5 years after which it would be transferred to the states. Many industries were also ordered to relocate or to stop dumping chemicals into Ganga. Popular reforestation programs were taken and the national fund was created, but Uma Bharati became famous for calling Muslims "Haramzade "( a derogatory term meaning bastards) in an election campaign, while Ganga became more polluted. Uma Bharati used around 80 % of the sewage fund to build only  11 % of sewage infrastructure. Also, a sadhu named  G.D Agarwal fasted to death after 112 days in October 2018, demanding the government to spend 20,000 Crore Rupees allocated to clean Ganga and maintain a continuous flow of water from Gangotri to Sunderbans. His letters to PMO remained unanswered, and no Primetime news debates were held. 

With national elections and Ardh Kumbh Mela forthcoming in 2019, Modi replaced Uma Bharati with Nitin Gadkari, an RSS strong man who was well known for his PWD work in Maharashtra and later at the center for his work as a minister of road transport, highways, and shipping. The Ardh Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj ( formerly Allahabad) in January 2019 will be of major significance, for it will reflect on Government's progress on its poll promise of cleaning Ganga. While Gadkari promises to miraculously clean Ganga before the Mela, many are skeptical about the plan with virtually no time left to complete pending projects. Around  30 % of proposed 96 sewage plant is yet to commence construction.

While the government targets industries which emit harmful chemicals like Chromium and Mercury. Much of the pollutants are because of domestic sewage which is estimated to be about 2,900 MLD for 2018, with  48 % of it is estimated to be treated. While the government wants to build more trees along the banks, it is diverting a major chunk of usable water from Uttarakhand for irrigation, thus increasing Coliform ( a measure of feacal matter in water bodies) and toxin concentration. Ganga is lost in the farms and becomes food for Indians, while the river bed is replaced by manmade sewage and then dumped into Bangladesh.

 In the next column,  I will reflect on the scale of the problem, river joining projects and what can be done to rejuvenate rivers.