Threat of Ganges River Pollution in India

Rapid Industrialization and modernization come with its downside. This is evident from the fact that the holy river of Hindus in India, Ganges is losing its sanctity and is under serious threat from exploding population in the last 25 years, lackadaisical attitude of the Government and lax industrial regulations. On a regular basis, nearly 1 billion gallons of untreated sewage waste is drained into the river from over 116 cities, 300 towns and thousands of rural locations situated in the banks of the Ganges. Another 60 million gallons of industrial waste are dumped into the river by numerous industrial plants located along the rivers banks. The amount of wastes have increased alarmingly by more than twice in the last two decades and experts predict further decline in water quality by 100% in next 20 years. It is a strange irony that the Hindus, who form a majority of Indian population, treat the river Ganges as sanctum sanctorium and also believe in dumping ashes of the dead that make the water impure. As a sacramental practice, the Hindus cremate their dead on the banks of the river and release the remains of the bodies, in the hope of purification of human sins and pathway to heaven for their souls.

Besides this, the sacred river is also a dumping ground of unwanted or “”illegitimate infants”, animal carcass, cattle every year which are also associated with religious reasons. Therefore, in this basin of a half-billion souls, exists a dichotomy where in purification and pollution are intertwined in unholy matrimony.

Contamination of the River Ganga and its toxic implication

" According to report by UNICEF on Ganges river water, there will be constant competition over water, between farming families and urban dwellers, enviro...

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...when used for irrigation and harms people who use it as drinking water.

With the tremendous pace of population growth in the cities located on the banks of the Ganges notwithstanding, the infrastructure to control and treat the proportionately increasing wastes has been inefficient and largely a dampener. Nearly four million people as on today use the river watershed for their daily activities; this includes 1.6 million residents of Varanasi where Ganga waters are the densest and largest. “Recent water samples collected in Varanasi revealed fecal coli form counts of about 50,000 bacteria per 100 millilitres of water, 10,000% higher than the government standard for safe river bathing”. These alarming statistics indicate the risk of manifestation of the pollutants in form of a plethora of water borne diseases such as cholera, hepatitis, typhoid and amoebic dysentery