The Ganges (Ganga), India’s most revered and longest river, is struggling with gross water pollution since decades as none of the major government-aided projects could provide a possible solution.
Besides the main river, most of its tributaries are all described as grossly polluted by various Indian agencies like the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), its National River Conservation Directorate and National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA).
If one were to travel down from the river from the Gangotri (the glacier from where Ganga arises) one should be ready to face some rather nasty surprises, including the complete disappearance of the river for several miles at several places. Further down there are barrages on the river at places like Chilla, Haridwar, Narora, at Kanpur and also the dam at Farakka. In addition, each of the river’s 17 major tributaries has been dammed several times. Each of these hydro-power projects, dams and barrages have significant adverse impact on the river.
However, in NGRBA’s description of the problem, there is no mention of these projects. Its sole focus is on pollution: “In the Ganga basin approximately 12,000 million litres per day (mld) of sewage is generated, for which presently there is treatment capacity of only around 4,000 mld. Approximately 3000 mld of sewage is discharged into the main stem of the river Ganga from Class I and II towns located on the banks, against which treatment capacity of about 1,000 mld has been created till date.”
The contribution of industrial pollution, volume-wise, is about 20 percent but due to its toxic and non-biodegradable nature, this has much more hazardous impact. This kind of limited diagnosis is bound to lead to wrong prescription.
The polluted state of the river is not a recent development. This has been known for decades. It is not lack for attempts or lack of financial, technical or infrastructure resource allocation or lack of understanding that’s responsible for the current state of the river.
The first phase of tackling pollution in the river Ganga started with the enactment of the Water Pollution Act of 1974, by setting up of elaborate institutional arrangements including the central and state pollution control boards, armed with significant legal powers. However, till date we do not have a single case of a river or tributary that has been cleaned up due to the efforts of pollution control boards.
Having seen this failure, the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi launched the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) in 1985. He was hopeful that the Environment Protection Act, enacted the following year would be useful in this endeavor. The Act is good, but the agency implementing it, Ministry of Environment and Forest, has not shown the independence, the will or the intention of tackling this problem with any seriousness.
The GAP continued with its emphasis on more sewage treatment plants, pumps, pipes, and such infrastructure. Decades later, the then Indian Union Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, declared in Indian Parliament in 2009 that the GAP has failed to achieve its basic objectives.
In 1993, the GAP Phase-II was launched and in December 1996 it was merged with the National River Action Plan. The National River Conservation Authority is chaired by the Indian Prime Minister and includes ministers of Indian central government and Chief ministers of all Ganga basin states. While it was apparent that the GAP and River Action Plans are failure, no credible attempt has been made to understand the reasons for failure when supervision was supposed to be from the highest quarters of the Indian government.
The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) has shown through several reports how the scheme has been a failure, the latest report coming only in 2011. The report blames the current Indian government which came to power in 2004, for giving low priority to saving country’s rivers.
In February 2009, just months before the parliamentary elections, sensing that the issue is becoming hot, the Indian government came out with a notification on a National Ganga River Basin Authority, headed by the Prime Minister and including some members from non-governmental organizations.
It was clear from the outset that it was a symbolic gesture and there was no serious intent of tackling these issues. Like earlier this time also, there were no credible attempt to understand the reasons for past failures and address issues related to the governance of the river.
The communities or the independent non-governmental organizations had no role in the crucial decisions being taken by the government regarding the $1 billion funding or specific plans, programs or schemes. In over four years, since the authority has been formed, there have been just three meetings (even the agenda and minutes of these meetings are not in public domain). Frustrated by this, three non-governmental members announced their resignation from the authority.
So what exactly is the problem? For nearly four decades of attempts at controlling river pollution, the key decision makers have been union and state governments and their constituents and agencies. And none of these agencies have shown any culture of democratic, transparent, accountable or participatory functioning.
The lives or livelihoods of the decision makers are not dependent on whether the rivers are clean and whether they have any fresh water flow or not. And the people whose livelihoods are dependent on these rivers have absolutely no role at any level in ensuring that these rivers are clean.
In other words, the emphasis has been solely on infrastructure (new plants, pumps, pipes) and (pocketable) finances, but none at all in addressing the governance-related component of the river management regime. It is assumed that there is no need to address governance to ensure that the infrastructure and technology actually works as intended, that decisions taken are appropriate and that finances are used optimally and for the right options.
A simple indicator of the failure of governance is that most of the existing sewage treatment plants do not function anywhere close to promised levels of quality or quantity of output. Yet, no one is responsible for this; no one has ever been punished.
The Ganga campaign advocates say the river should not be connected to the sewer, but the reality today is that the river is the sewer. There has been no credible assessment of the amount of freshwater the river should have all round the year downstream from a dam, hydro project or a barrage, and none is getting released at diversion points. The rivers are allowed to be killed multiple times.
Leave aside the question of stopping work on ongoing projects on the Bhagirathi, Alaknanda, and Mandakini tributaries as the Ganga campaign has demanded, the Indian environment ministry cleared the 300 MW Alaknanda hydro project even when the statutory Forest Advisory Committee refused twice to pass the project and the Wildlife Institute of India, the ministry appointed consultant, recommended that the project should not be allowed.
The hydro project is close to a couple of ancient shrines and protected areas like Nandadevi Biosphere and the Valley of Flowers. The recently (April 2013) submitted inter-ministerial group report on the upper Ganga Hydro projects is an exercise in manipulations to push all the hydro-power projects.
The gap between the state of the river and what the Indian people dream of is only increasing with no road map in sight to bridge this distance. One has to remember that in the context of climate change, with glaciers melting, sea levels rising, and monsoon patterns becoming unpredictable, the state of the river will only get worse.
It is not that India’s citizens and society are beyond blame; in a sense, the religious, cultural connection of the Ganga River has been a bane since it has lead to an increase in the pollution load of river rather than reducing it. Why did people allow the river they revere, to come to this pass? What have they done to reverse it? And can we even hope the river will have a better fate or state without making citizens a part of the process?
Ultimately, the river is a mirror, or better still, a report card of what you do in its catchment. If there is no will to change what we do to the river in the upstream, there won’t be a way to achieve any improved state of the Ganga.
Himanshu Thakkar, works for South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People (www.sandrp.in)
