Towards a revitalised River Ganga

September 25th, 2015

Swamini Adityananda Saraswati, Program Director, Ganga Action Parivar & Global Interfaith WASH Alliance

This article is the fifth in a special series looking at water quality issues in the River Ganga (also known as the Ganges). The other articles in this series can be accessed here.

Whilst a population which has a size akin to that of the United States, Russia and Canada combined directly depends on the Ganga for sustenance and livelihoods, the river system is seriously threatened by unsustainable and harmful human activities.

With very little foresight or consideration, the Ganga is contaminated every day with more than three billion liters of sewage – the majority of which is untreated – as well as toxic industrial chemicals, agricultural effluents, and urban run-off.1Given these conditions, it is not surprising that many people who rely on the Ganga for bathing or drinking have contracted waterborne-illnesses. In Kanpur and other industrial areas, the discharge of untreated effluent into the Ganga has led to high prevalence of certain cancers in people living downstream. Mass deforestation, erosion from construction activities, and the dumping of decomposing bodies and solid waste (including discarded religious material) further degrade water quality.

A compounding factor is that due to the over-extraction of its waters, much of the Ganga does not have enough flow in it to dilute its heavy burden of raw sewage and toxic chemicals. Some 60% of the Ganga’s waters are diverted for irrigation, much of which is lost to evaporation.2Alternative irrigation methods that utilize and waste far less water are rarely put into practice. In other sections, the Ganga’s waters are diverted for hydroelectric projects into underground tunnels or canals that span for kilometers. In these locations, the natural riverbed becomes dry and barren, often supporting only small, stagnant pools in which mosquitoes can proliferate. As a result, once glorious ecosystems decline as human populations suffer.

A water scarce future

According to NASA studies, groundwater over-extraction in northern India (home to the Ganga) is among the most severe in the world.3 According to World Bank data, the state of Haryana can sustainably extract 9 km3 of groundwater every year, yet in actuality it withdraws 10 km3 per year.4 At the same time, the majority of surface water from the Yamuna river (the Ganga’s largest tributary) is diverted in Haryana at a single barrage to supply demands from farms, populations and industry in relatively arid areas. In the face of increasing population growth, more water will be needed to grow more crops, leading to further withdrawals from an already over-extracted river system. There is a potential for dry patches of the river system to increase dramatically unless agricultural practices are revised to encompass water-saving measures, such as micro-irrigation and rainwater harvesting.

Failed restoration attempts

In response to the Ganga’s worsening condition, the Government of India launched two cleanup initiatives, the Ganga Action Plans (GAP) I and II in 1985 and 1996, respectively. Although well over $250 million USD was spent under these schemes, many consider the initiatives as failures for which little return was seen on the investments made.

Ganga Action Parivar analyzed GAP I and II and have determined that there were a number of weaknesses in the implementation of the programme, including:

Minimum flow not adressed

The Ganga must have an ample amount of water in its natural riverbed in order to dilute toxins, yet according to India’s Central Pollution Control Board, 5 much of the river, in its current state, does not even have enough flow to dilute treated water discharged from sewage treatment plants, much less to dilute the billions of litres of raw sewage and chemicals that contaminate it every day.

much of the river, in its current state, does not even have enough flow to dilute treated water discharged from sewage treatment plants, much less to dilute the billions of litres of raw sewage and chemicals that contaminate it every day. GAP I and II did not address the underlying causes of low flows, such as unsustainable agricultural practices.

Lack of community participation

The GAP I and II has publically been viewed primarily as a government scheme, the implication being that there was no sense of ownership amongst local people.

Uneven approach to sewage treatment

Expansion of sewage treatment facilities was unable to keep pace with population growth and new residential developments.

Power outages frequently cause sewage treatment plants to fail.

Many plants became overwhelmed during monsoon season, forcing municipalities to shut them down.

In many cases under the GAP I and II, there was no follow-up funding allotted for treatment plant maintenance, and the state governments did not perform proper O&M. As a result, small and potentially-avoidable problems often led to a partial or total plant shut-down.

The GAP I and II programmes only addressed wastewater flowing through drains to the river. Household toilets and illegal drains/slums connected to the sewer systems were not addressed; neither were solid waste management facilities.

The situation today

In 2011, the World Bank generously granted the Government of India a $1 billion loan for the revitalization of the Ganga river system. This lending programme, which works alongside India’s National Ganga River Basin Authority, has been designed to increase the capacity of major municipalities along the main channel of the Ganga River, which are in desperate need of sewage treatment facilities in the face of population growth. Current projects also include industrial pollution abatement and riverfront development plans. The plan also includes an impressive new River Quality Monitoring network, consisting of 100 water quality monitoring systems that will provide real-time data, which is today lacking. In addition, a Ganga Knowledge Center was established recently as an institute that will help spread knowledge and facilitate decision making.

But is it enough?

Ganga Action Parivar strongly commends and congratulates the World Bank for its approach towards enabling a healthier Ganga River through its historic loan. Yet, as we have seen from past failures, we must also look towards yet untapped approaches to ensure the survival of the river and the people and ecosystems that depend on it. In so doing, Ganga Action Parivar recommends that the Government of India and World Bank target three key yet over-looked sectors for additional approaches:

1. Agriculture and extraction

As mentioned above, a great portion of northern India already suffers from over-extraction of surface and ground waters, and without a change in approach to agriculture, the water shortage is expected to worsen over time. At the same time, the agricultural sector is responsible for significant pollutant discharge.

It is necessary to reform agriculture and irrigation in northern India so that the Ganga river system has enough clean water to nourish its population and to dilute its pollution load. To accomplish this, all over-extracting regions must be given greater access to affordable or even fully-subsidized micro-irrigation systems alongside stronger awareness programmes. The Government of India must similarly change its policies so that farmers and industries are more highly monitored and are strongly penalized for over-extraction. Governmental electricity subsidies, which today enable some farmers to run their water pumps 17 hours a day, should similarly be revised, so that they instead support less water-intensive irrigation methods and less water-demanding crops. Organic agriculture and marketing support for all farms within a recommended 500 metres of the Ganga should also be encouraged.

2. On-site sewage treatment: The alternatives to sewage treatment plants

Sewage treatment plants are expensive to build, operate and maintain. As a result, many of the plants built in the past are no longer operating at capacity. Whilst it is laudable that additional sewage treatment plants will soon be introduced to major municipalities on the Ganga, the cost of long-term maintenance for these plants and the extensive civic infrastructure they require threatens their long-term effectiveness. Further, the waterway will still be deluged with sewage from other areas, as well as from the countless illegal sewage drains that spew directly into the river.

For these reasons, it is important to consider ways that sewage can be treated in more economic, localized manners through new approaches. One example is bio-digestion systems, which convert sewage into biogas (which can be used to generate electricity) and nutrient-rich digestate (which can be used as fertilizer). Another approach is bio-remediation using specific plants, such as reeds and lilies, that naturally purify industrial and sewage effluent. Both technologies require no mechanical parts and thus have few maintenance needs.

3. Increased community-based river monitoring

Rather than investing only in high-tech, often un-manned monitoring stations, local communities can play a greater role when citizens are trained to act as river water quality testers. On approach to citizen involvement is the usage of smart-phone technologies that can sample water and upload the results instantly to the internet. These individuals can be cross-trained as community educators and mobilizers – for example, they could lead clean-up and tree planting drives, and report pollution violations directly to the authorities.

Conclusions

As a concluding thought, through our many consultations, we at Ganga Action Parivar have found that the sheer enormity and complexity of options and position papers has caused what may be termed as a “policy paralysis,” in which decisions come slowly, if at all. For this reason, we recommend the simplification of choices through an approachable “menu-based” system that can be standardized for all decision makers in all Ganges river basin regions. Such an approach, if expressed through the lens of behavioral economics, could prove in itself to be a saviour for the river that many see to be a saviour in its own right.

References :

World Bank (2015) The National Ganga River Basin Project. Available online at: http://goo.gl/IsyTMz WWF [Online] Threat of water extraction on the Ganges. http://goo.gl/nIfkOc Tiwari, V. M., Wahr, J., Swenson, S. (2009) Dwindling groundwater resources in Northern India, from satellite gravity observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L18401. World Bank (2010) Deep wells and prudence: towards pragmatic action for addressing groundwater overexploitation in India. Report 51676, World Bank, Washington DC. Available online at: http://goo.gl/RuwafS Central Pollution Control Board (2013) Pollution assessment: river Ganga. CPBC, Delhi. Available online at: http://goo.gl/KBq3aD

Swamini Adityananda Saraswati is the Director of Programmes at Ganga Action Parivar (GAP) and the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance (GIWA) at Parmarth Niketan, Rishikesh. Under the inspiration and guidance of HH Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, Ganga Action Parivar (www.gangaaction.org) works towards creating thoughtful solutions for the numerous problems plaguing the Ganga and its tributaries. GIWA (www.washalliance.org) was launched at UNICEF Headquarters in New York with the understanding that it is crucial to engage the world’s many faiths to address the vital cause of poor water sanitation and hygiene conditions, a key reason behind the majority of India’s childhood deaths. Swamini Adityananda has over 26 years of experience in serving the poor and marginalized as well as in addressing environmental issues in locations including several African nations, India, the United States and Thailand, as well as at the United Nations and World Bank levels.

The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, or any of the institutions to which the authors are associated. Please see the Global Water Forum terms and conditions here.