2019 in Sight, PM Modi Takes Charge of Efforts to Clean up Ganga

Efforts to reduce river pollution are in shambles with only 6% of the ‘clean-up’ budget being used since April 2015.

The Ganga’s polluted banks and waters in Varanasi. (Photo: Reuters)

• “Impossible to meet 2018 deadline” to clean the Ganga
  
• Govt struggling to set up water treatment plants, tackle pollution
  
• Factories, tanneries still flush effluents into river
  
• Programme a flagship project for PM Modi
  

The Rs 1,200-crore plan to clean the Ganga is badly behind schedule with large stretches contaminated by toxic waste and sewage, forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene, according to government officials and documents seen by Reuters.

Much of the money allocated to the project, a flagship initiative for the Modi government, remains unspent, say officials from the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), which is overseeing the project.

In one slide of a presentation to a top Modi aide in late January, NMCG officials marked almost the entire length of the river within three big circles to highlight "pollution in river Ganga".

A 2018 deadline to clean the river is "impossible", one NMCG official said. "If we want to meet the 2018 deadline, we should have commissioned plants to treat half the sewage already," he said,.

Over three-quarters of the sewage generated in the towns and cities in the northern plains flows untreated into the Ganga, according to the presentation, which has not been made public.

State governments have struggled to find land for new treatment plants, while complex tendering processes have put bidders off pitching for new clean-up projects, officials said.

Also Read: Ganga a ‘Living Entity’- What Does That Mean for the River?

Only Rs 133 of Rs 1,200 Cr ‘Clean-up Budget’ Spent

Recognising that the clean-up mission is in a shambles, Modi has decided to take personal control, a senior NMCG official said. The clean-up drive is important as Modi wants to show tangible improvement before the 2019 general elections.

His principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, has met NMCG officials almost monthly since November, demanding to see updates on the project's progress, the NMCG official said. Misra did not respond to messages and calls seeking comment.

Modi committed Rs 1,200 crore for the clean-up in the five years to 2020 but the January presentation showed just Rs 133 crore had been spent between April 2015 and March 2017.

Water resources minister Uma Bharti, who is responsible for overseeing the clean-up and announced the 2018 deadline, did not respond to requests for comment.

"I have lost hope," said Rakesh Jaiswal, head of a small Ganga-focused environmental group based in Kanpur since 1993. "There has been nothing on the ground."

Also Read: IIT Roorkee Students to Raise Rs 50 L For ‘Clean Ganga’ Campaign

760 Factories Pumping in Effluents

The National Green Tribunal said in February that "not a single drop of the Ganga has been cleaned so far", accusing the government of wasting public money.

The river is a water source for 400 million people. But it is also the destination for waste produced by 760 industrial units described by the NMCG as “grossly polluting”.

In addition, the NMCG presentation showed, about 4,800 million litres of sewage from 118 towns and cities flows into the Ganga every day. The functioning capacity to treat sewage is just 1,017 million litres per day (MLD).

According to official data, the Modi administration has cleared the construction of plants to treat an additional 933 MLD, and the rehabilitation of existing plants, with a capacity to clean an additional 1,091 MLD.

Of these, plants treating less than 160 MLD have been completed, but it is unclear if they have started operations.

The problems are striking in Kanpur: toxic pollution from tanneries operating in the industrial city flows down slum-lined open sewers into the Ganga.

Of the 456 tanneries in Uttar Pradesh that back onto the river, most of them in Kanpur, authorities have shut down just 14, according to the government presentation.

The government has also lagged on the simpler tasks of cleaning the ghats and the cremation grounds along the river.

Of 182 ghats to be modernised, work on only 50 has started. Of 118 cremation grounds, just 15 are currently being renovated, with work awarded for another 31, the presentation showed.

"The situation has deteriorated every year, fewer people visit now and there are no prayers at this river bank," said Ram Das, a priest at a riverside temple.

Also Read: As Banaras Has its ‘Maja Aawat Ho’ Moment, Ganga Gasps for Breath

Modi Takes Control After UP Win

Modi may find it easier to launch new clean-up projects in UP with the BJP now in power in the state.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has long championed cleaning the Ganga. Last week he inspected a riverfront development along a Ganga tributary, calling for work to be accelerated.

You will see improvements. We have asked the states to speed up progress and money is not an issue.

CV Dharma Rao, Deputy Director General, NMCG

On a recent evening at a ghat in Kanpur, workers were fixing sandstone around the ghats leading down to the Ganga, one of dozens of riverfront facelifts that government has launched.

But the state of the river was unchanged – black water, full of plastic and other waste thrown by devotees, flowed slowly as mosquitos buzzed above.

(Published in an arrangement with Reuters.)

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