Before Modi came to power, he made tall promises about cleaning the Ganga by 2019. But seven years after he came to power, the Ganga remains filthy. Of the 20,000 crores allocated as the budget, a significant portion of the money has been spent on advertisements; only 43 per cent of the projects have been completed, according to data available with the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG).
“Not a single drop of the Ganga has been cleaned,” said the National Green Tribunal. The Parliamentary panel has repeatedly questioned the sluggish pace of operations.
The Gangetic belt is one of the most densely inhabited regions of the world, with 1/7 of the globe’s population residing here. People rely on the river for their everyday needs. Even though the river is considered the fifth most polluted river worldwide, it the source of water for an estimated 40 crore people.
The Ganga has been contaminated by urbanisation, poor sewage treatment, and bad government policies, according to Professor Vijay Nath Mishra. Far from being a sacred river, the Ganga is now an ecological disaster. ‘Three-fourths of Ganga’s pollution emanates from municipal sewage of some 100 cities and towns, besides thousands of villages located along its banks, stretching over 2,525 km.’ As the Census 2011 revealed, ‘there are at least 18 million septic tanks and 10 million pit latrines around the main Ganga stream, which dispose of untreated faecal sludge into the river. As much as 12 billion litre of sewage flows into Ganga and its tributaries every day; 53 per cent of it untreated.’
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