ODE TO A SACRED RIVER

Several attempts have been made to clean the Ganga in the past. But never before has the project been undertaken on mission mode, with the prime minister himself overseeing its execution

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

N0 other river in India evokes as much awe or is surrounded with as much religious fervour as the mighty Ganga. The river begins its 2,525 km journey from the mouth of the Gangotri and ends up at the Gangasagar in West Bengal. The river covers 26 per cent of the country’s landmass, straddling a mammoth area of 8.6 lakh square kilometres. It flows through five states and has six other states in its basin. The Ganga and its tributaries contribute as much as 28 per cent to India’s water resources. More than 43 per cent, or 500 million people, of India’s population depends on it and the Gangetic delta is considered the food bowl of the country.

There are 97 major urban centres and 4,457 villages along the river’s main stem. And therein lies the problem. Over the decades, these habitations have indiscriminately all owed their sewage and industrial effluents to flow into the river, causing its water to become highly polluted and, on many stretches, destroying aquatic life.