VARANASI: Clean Ganga may not be the top political issue in Varanasi this election, but it surely is a promise strong enough to find resonance in conversations of a meditative city that suddenly has to cope with construction activity round every second bend.The dusts of change that fill the air settle down in the openings to the 84-odd famed ghats of the city, which exemplify this change best. You can hope to walk seamlessly from one ghat to another without shrouding yourself in dust or other waste. Modern stainless steel dustbins dot these paths and garbage seems to be going right where it should.There are still some patches with standing urine or cattle dung, but mostly the ghats have been transformed into walkable public spaces with clean seating overlooking the holy river.Not many would have believed this possible till May 2014, when Varanasi elected Narendra Modi as its Lok Sabha representative. In keeping with the prime minister’s election promise, ghat cleanliness is clearly in mission mode, with the Varanasi municipal corporation and the Centre’s National Mission on Clean Ganga (NMCG) working in tandem.This change, however, stops short of the holy river. The Namami Gange project to cleanse the Ganga of severe pollution is yet to make an impact.Ganga’s toxicity levels remain hazardous. “We have real-time water testing in Varanasi and the pollution levels stay unchanged mainly because faecal coliform levels are still as high as ever,” said a senior official from the Central Pollution Control Board ( CPCB ).“There is only one solution to address this problem – intercept sewage and treat it. That is the domain of the civil works to be done by the NMCG.”Sankat Mochan Foundation, a local nongovernmental organisation, conducted a laboratory test of Ganga water in January and found faecal coliform level of 35,000 per 100 ml near Rajendra Prasad Ghat — 70 times higher than CPCB’s permissible outdoor bathing limit. At Varuna Confluence, the figure was a staggering 3,10,00,000 per 100 ml.There are 50,000-60,000 daily bathers in the Ganga in Varanasi, and many feel a stink that they ignore, hoping faith will give them protection.As per the NMCG website, the government has deployed trash skimmers – machines that collect floating debris off the river surface – in Varanasi. But you won’t find one. Varanasi’s municipal commissioner Shrihari Pratap Shahi told ET that trash skimmers were withdrawn within two months as the arrangement proved unsustainable. “Now we ply eight boats which help clean water surface,” he said.NMCG on its website also claims to have sanctioned three crematoria in the city, but they are yet to come up. The sole electric crematorium at Harishchandra Ghat operates if and when anyone does agree to choose it over the traditional pyre on the river banks.ET tried to get comments from NMCG through PIB spokesperson, but they did not respond as of press time on Tuesday. Most people ET spoke to are critical of Namami Gange.“The focus in Namami Gange is more cosmetic, like dressing a sick person in good clothes and pretending all is well,” said Prof Vishambhar Nath Mishra, a faculty member at IIT Banaras Hindu University and president of the Sankat Mochan Foundation, which has been dedicated to the cause of Ganga since the Indira Gandhi era and through two phases of the Ganga Action Plan.Mishra said his foundation has written several times to Uma Bharti , Union minister for Ganga rejuvenation, but never got a response.Members of the consortium of IITs brought in by the Modi government to adopt and clean stretches of the river also privately lament the lack of progress. “The project is neither wellconceived nor very scientifically planned,” a senior IIT researcher involved in the exercise said on condition of anonymity.Prof Kavita Shah, coordinator for Banaras Hindu University’s new Madan Mohan Malviya Research Centre for Ganga, blamed the lack of progress on frequent leadership changes at NMCG and poor coordination between authorities such as IIT Consortium, NMCG, IIT BHU and CPCB.Prof UK Choudhary, formerly with BHU’s Ganga Research Centre, likened the current status of the programme to taking Ganga to the beauty parlour via ghats without treating her critical ailments.BJP leaders such as Varanasi mayor Ram Gopal Mohley and Shiv Sharan Pathak, who mans the PM’s public relations office, blamed the state government for the lack of progress.As Varanasi prepares for polling in the assembly election on March 8, ‘Swachch Ganga’ does not seem to be a key campaign issue. Even so, Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, who suspended his agitation on clean Ganga after Modi announced Namami Gange, last week announced that he is fielding independent candidates – Satish Agarwal from Varanasi South and Sunil Shukla from Varanasi Cantt.Swami Avimukteshwaranand, mahant of Vidya Math, said, “The National Green Tribunal in its latest observation has said that not a drop of Ganga water is without pollution. Then, what exactly has Namami Gange done in the last three years? Made fools out of us!”