The filthy state of a holy river

A staggering Rs 17,000 crore is being spent to host the 40-day Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. An additional sum of Rs 237 crore was sanctioned by the Uttar Pradesh government at the end of November towards safety, cleanliness and bathing facilities.

Between 14 January and 26 February 2025, an estimated 200 million people are expected to visit the confluence of the rivers for a holy dip. The holy dip, which the devout believe will cleanse them of all impurity, is in a river contaminated by untreated sewage water from as many as 37 sewage lines.

Referring to a report by the Ganga Control Unit, the Prayagraj municipal corporation and the National Green Tribunal’s UP chairman Prakash Srivastava, deputy mela officer Vivek Chaturvedi admitted that 128 million litres of untreated sewage water from the sewage treatment plant (STP) at Prayagraj were being dumped into the Ganga daily.

Efforts are on, he added, to ‘completely repair’ the system before the spiritual extravaganza begins. The ‘Namami Gange’ project to "accomplish the twin objectives of effective abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation" was launched by PM Modi, self-declared son of the Ganga, in 2014. In Varanasi, his own parliamentary constituency, the conditions are just as bad.

On 18 November, while hearing petitions on the plight of the Assi and Varuna rivers, an NGT bench pulled up Varanasi’s district magistrate for not acting on their earlier orders, and further directed him to “put up public signboards on the river banks that Ganga water is not suitable for bathing and drinking”. The streets that connect the ghats are blocked with overflowing sewers and slippery with moss.

At Manikarnika Ghat, sewage water can be seen flowing down the stairs, while shrouds and bamboo poles lie scattered everywhere.

Blocked sewers are a feature of both Sheetla Ghat and Tripura Bhairavi Ghat, while Rana Mahal Ghat and Mir Ghat are open urinals.

The initial allocation of Rs 20,000 crore allocated for the Namami Gange project between financial years 2014–15 and 2020–2021 was later revised to Rs 30,000 crore. The cost of sewage infrastructure projects alone was estimated at Rs 15,039 crore. In 2022–23, a budget of Rs 2,047 crore was allocated to UP and Rs 4,000 crore in the financial year 2023–24, although only Rs 2,400 crore was reportedly released.

For the financial year 2024–25, a budget of Rs 3,500 crore was earmarked for phase two. An estimated sum of Rs 37,550 crore was sanctioned for the project, of which only Rs 18,033 crore were spent till June 2024 as per UP state records.

To be fair, the problem of contamination does not begin in Uttar Pradesh. The Ganga is tainted by human interference as soon as it emerges from the snowclad mountains. Data presented to the NGT Uttarakhand on 5 November 2024 revealed that faecal coliform — a bacterium found in human and animal excreta — in samples taken from an STP in Gangotri was higher than levels stipulated by the Central Pollution Control Board.

The NGT has asked the chief secretary of Uttarakhand to submit a detailed report on the situation on 13 February 2025. Data also revealed that about 53 STPs installed in Dehradun, Uttarkashi, Pauri, Chamoli, Haridwar and Tehri in Uttarakhand have not been effective in cleaning and treating ‘urban filth’.

Following widespread fear of another natural disaster in Uttarakhand like the Kedarnath tragedy of 2013, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognizance and banned new hydroelectric projects. Since then, the union ministry of forest and environment has formed as many as three committees to look into the issue.

In 2014, a committee headed by environmentalist Ravi Chopra recommended that all the 24 hydroelectric projects (HEPs) proposed should be abandoned. In 2015, a second committee headed by Vinod Tare from IIT, Kanpur concluded that though six projects had already been approved, their effect on the ecology would be adverse. This made it difficult for the government to proceed as planned. In 2020, a third committee headed by engineer B. P. Das finally did the government’s bidding and declared all 28 projects safe. In a 2021 meeting chaired by the PM’s principal secretary, a decision was taken to continue with seven of the 28 projects on which work was already underway.

On 8 August 2024, the Supreme Court questioned the Union government’s permission for only seven projects. A high-level committee was formed under the chairmanship of cabinet secretary T.V. Somanathan to reconsider the report of the B. P. Das Committee and decide the future of the remaining 21 HEPs. On 8 November, the report presented at the Supreme Court recommended five more projects—Bowala Nandprayag (300 MW on the Alaknanda River), Devshree (252 MW on the Pindar River), Bhyundar Ganga (24.3 MW), Jhalkoti (12.5 MW) and Urgam-2 (7.5 MW). No doubt all the projects will eventually be cleared.

The Union ministry of forest and environment has told the court that most of the 28 recommended projects fall under sensitive landslide areas, citing experts and environmentalists who point out that recent disasters like the Chamoli earthquake and the Joshimath flash floods and land subsidence occurred around the HEP sites. This does not indicate concern for the environment as much as camouflage. If questioned, the ministry will say that expert opinions were taken on board, even as it piggybacks on administrative committees that greenlight these controversial projects. Thus, the contamination of the Ganga begins in Uttarakhand itself.

Thousands of rivers, big and small, join the Ganga after it emerges from Gomukh. Some 7,000 of these small rivers originate in Nepal and probably as many in India. Most of the rivers that feed the Ganga across the length of UP— be it the Gomti, Kali, Hindon, Ramganga, Tamsa, Betwa, Assi or Varuna—have reportedly been reduced to drains following rapid urbanisation and concretisation. That is why the sum total of Namami Gange’s impact is zero. In the name of Ganga Abhiyan, disproportionate emphasis has been laid on cosmetic changes— paving the ghats, tiling, lighting, painting. Despite the stated focus on STPs, the plants stay closed during the four monsoon months when the river is in full spate and overflowing with untreated sewage.

In the remaining eight months, as water levels go down, the density of pollution goes up. Hundreds of tonnes of toxic pollutants are released from factories, textile mills, distilleries, leather units, slaughterhouses, hospitals. The river is the site of the entire spectrum of human activities, including excretion, ablution, washing, worship, immersion and cremation. All effluents, human and chemical, flow into it.

Chemical fertilisers and pesticides used to farm the Ganga basin are estimated to be around one million tonnes, of which five lakh tonnes flow into the Ganga annually. About 1,500 tonnes of other pesticides add to the problem. No alternatives are made available or even recommended to the farmers.

The investment in the STPs appears to have gone down the drain. On 22 October 2024, the NGT was told that arrangements for purifying dirty water are yet to be made at 247 of the targeted 326 polygons in Uttar Pradesh. Facilities to clean the water are not available in 12 of the 23 districts that the Ganga flows through.

Proceedings at the NGT in November made it clear that STPs are not the panacea they were made out to be. The river remains as polluted as ever and only an inquiry can reveal whether it was faulty planning or execution that has led to this sorry state of affairs. But of course, the Kumbh mela cannot wait. And so, to ensure relatively ‘pure water’ for those 40 days, an obscene amount of money must be spent.