Ganges River

by sewing the waste in it.By throwing the plastic bags etc. in it.By bath there animals in it.The ships were also polluting th rivr ganga.More than 400 million people live along the Ganges River. An estimated 60,000 persons ritually bathe daily in the river, which is considered holy by Indians. In the Hindu religion it is said to flow from the hair of the god Shiva. The spiritual and religious significance could be compared to what the Nile river meant to the ancient Egyptians. While the Ganges may be considered holy, there are some problems associated with the ecology. It is filled with chemical wastes, sewage and even the remains of human and animal corpses which carry major health risks by either direct bathing in the water ,or by drinking the highly contaminated water.

It is truly deeply anguishing that we have failed to make the Ganga free from pollution in spite of our central government launching the Ganga Action Plan in 1985, and spending hundreds of crores of rupees for this purpose, even though we know that the Ganga is the lifeline of our crores of people and crores of our people consider her to be their divine mother, and our experts claim that we have the necessary knowledge, skill and wealth to make the Ganga and her tributaries completely pollution free within two years. Unfortunately our leaders in political and industrial domains are showing utter indifference to the impending devastation ecological crisis. (See our letters to bureaucrats, political leaders and leaders of industry on the problem of saving the Ganga, and their response to the letters.)The Ganga today is more polluted than when the Ganga Action Plan was first initiated

by the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1986. The fast shrinking glaciers, dams,

barrages, canals and alarmingly high volume of pollution pose an ever increasing threat

to the health and life of the river. The state of Uttar Pradesh alone is responsible for over

50% of the pollutants entering the river along its entire journey to the sea.

The defilement of the river Ganga begins at Rishikesh when the river enters the plains.

The Ganga river water is brown or black in colour from Narora to Varanasi during the

lean months. At Kanpur the water stinks even during the monsoon when the river is

flooded. Since the launching of GAP, things have gone downhill in a big way in Kanpur.

The amount of filth along and in the river still continues unabated. Polybags are tossed

in publicly and casually; piles of refuse tumble down slopes to the river edge. The river is

still the private garbage dump of industries and individuals alike. During the lean period,

the river is so shallow that one can walk through the black muddy waters of the river.

The river is littered with human corpses and animal carcasses throughout its course and the sight is truly offensive, repulsive, irritating, and disgusting and the oily blue-black

stench of tannery waste is unbearable. These are utmost insults to the holiness of the

river and any idea of purity.

Today there are more than 50 drains carrying raw sewage to the river Ganga and

Yamuna at Allahabad while there were only 13 drains before GAP was launched in

1986. Every Magh mela, Ardha-kumbha, and Kumbha, sadhus and saints protest in

large numbers against the river pollution and boycott the ritual bathings.

Nowhere in Varanasi the Ganga is worth taking a holy dip. The coliform and faecal

coliform count is exceedingly high in the river water. The 84 bathing ghats are

sandwiched between two tributaries, Assi and Varuna, which are now huge sewage

drains.

As the Ganga continues to wind its way down towards Kolkata she experiences dozens

of similar assaults that leave her waters fetid and filled with toxins and diseases. The

situation is the same throughout the length of the river.

Human wasteThe Ganges river basin is one of the most fertile and densely populated region in the world and covers an area of 400,000 sq miles (1,000,000 km2). The river flows through 29 cities with population over 100,000, 23 cities with population between 50,000 and 100,000, and about 48 towns.[3] A sizable proportion of the effluents in Ganges are caused by this population through domestic usage like bathing, laundry and public defecation. Industrial wasteCountless tanneries, chemical plants, textile mills, distilleries, slaughterhouses, and hospitals contribute to the pollution of the Ganges by dumping untreated waste into it.[4] Industrial effluents are about 12% of the total volume of effluents reaching the Ganges. Although a relatively low proportion, they are a cause for major concern because they are toxic and non-biodegradable.[1] Religious eventsDuring festival seasons, over 70 million people take bath in the Ganges over a few weeks [5] to cleanse themselves from their sins. Some materials like food or leaves are left in the Ganges forritualistic reasons. A Hindu belief is that dropping the ashes of cremated bodies at the Manikarnika Ghat in the Ganges would give liberation to the soul.[6]