Carcass on the Ganga; (bottom) a turtle Carcass on the Ganga; (bottom) a turtle

For ages, the ghastly, bloated carcasses that float down the Ganga spreading disease and dread served a perplexing poser: how could such a river cleanse the devout who thronged its banks for a holy dip? Now, as the massive Rs 292-crore project to clean the murky 2,525-km-long Ganga river makes tedious progress, the Uttar Pradesh Government and the Ganga Project Directorate (GPD), have come up with a novel idea to get rid of the half-burnt bodies that impatient mahants throw into the river from smouldering funeral pyres. The proposal is to release meat-eating turtles into the river so that they will feed on the carcasses and assorted flotsam.

"Since the problem of getting rid of dead flesh defied technical solutions, using turtles seemed a safer biological option, says M. K. Ranjitsinh, a director of GPD. Turtles seem to be the only way out of the carcass problem at the moment.

This is because the 32 electric crematoria - which will convert bodies into ash in a short time - that are being erected along the banks of the river, might not find takers. There is religious sanctity attached to cremation on traditional pyres a long the ghats.

Of course, it is paradoxical that devout Hindus do not feel that partly-eaten bodies with vultures sitting on them and plucking at the flesh sully the sanctity of the river. "The divine waters of the Ganga brought down from heaven by saint Bhagiratha infused life into King Sagara's 60,000 sons.

And that is why devout Hindus bring their dead to the banks of the river so that the souls of their dead will live for ever." says Mahant Sevadas who has been performing funeral rites at the Varanasi ghats for more than two decades.

Turtles seem to be the only way to get rid of carcasses thrown from the pyres on the river bank.

But such sentiments notwithstanding, 7,000 turtles belonging to the Trionyx gangeticus and Lissemys punctata granosa species, which are flesh-eating, are being nurtured on farms in Kukrail and Sarnath. Incidentally, only six of the 200 turtle species are carnivorous.

Dhruvjyoti Basu, an IIT drop-out, who is in-charge of the farm at Kukrail near Lucknow, is excited about the project. Working on a shoe-string budget, Basu has been able to achieve 60 per cent hatching in his low cost make-shift incubators. Given the fact that hatching under natural conditions is rarely above 3 per cent, Basu's efforts are truly commendable.

Says Basu enthusiastically: "Although turtles are familiar to everyone - from aborigines to city dwellers in climate-controlled offices - the hidden talents of this lowly reptile are known to few." If the turtles are to succeed in the new role being given to them they will indeed have to put all their talents at gobbling up human and animal flesh to use.

In an experiment, six turtles gave a hint of their potential: they ate up a 35-kg roasted pig in less than six hours. No less than 10,000 bodies are burnt every year in Varanasi alone. Add to this the dead animals that are thrown into the river.

But, already apprehensions are being expressed that the turtles might feel like a taste of warm flesh and blood and attack bathers. Pilgrims coming up from a holy dip might find parts of their body mauled. Basu, however, puts such fears to rest. "These turtles have been harboured in river systems for ages and not a single case of man-eating has been reported so far," he stresses emphatically.

On the other hand, those like K. Mohan, a director of GPD, in-charge of the turtle project, feel that unless identified stretches of the Ganga are declared as sanctuary, releasing turtles could be risky as they could be killed. Project officials are actively worried about the safety of this not-so-intelligent reptile which looks like the tortoise, but is equipped with flippers to help it in swimming.

Legislation has, in the past, proved counter-productive in tackling such issues. Says Ranjitsinh: "If nothing works, we might have to educate people that this is no ordinary reptile we are talking about, but the second avatar of Vishnu, Kurma, the Lord of Turtles."

There is bound to be a great deal of hullabaloo about the religious aspects of using the turtles to eat half-burnt bodies. And this may even turn turtle the slow and steady progress, like that of the proverbial tortoise, being made by the propagators of this project.