Cleaning Ganga May Take Decades – Experts

The Central government's ambitious project, Namami Gange, which was started amidst much fanfare in 2014 with the intention of reducing the pollution in Ganga doesn't seem to be showing expected results.

In recent data released by the Jal Shakti Ministry, it becomes quite evident that the water quality in one of the most important Indian rivers, which is also considered sacred by most Indians, has improved only marginally.

The data, which was provided by the Ministry in response to a query by Kochi-based RTI applicant, K Govindan Nampoothiry, shows that the quality of water has shown signs of improvement at 42 and 21 locations from Rudraparayag in Uttarakhand to Uluberia in West Bengal between 2014 and 2019.

However, experts say that the improvement has been abysmally slow, and at this pace, it would take decades to accomplish the set task, as per a Hindustan Times report.

Water quality and its conduciveness to the aquatic life is evaluated based on three parameters – Dissolved Oxygen Level, Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and faecal coliform.

The report quotes BD Joshi, founder of the Indian Academy of Environmental Sciences, as observing, "The progress so far has been slow. In six years, if Ganga's water quality has improved by just 10-15%, it would take decades to clean the Ganga."

It must be noted that earlier, the government had set the deadline of 2019 to clean the river under the Namami Gange project, but it was pushed to 2022 later.