In the previous blog post, we looked at how love and devotion, coupled with improper sewage systems and lax regulations, have led to the demise of the river that courses through the world’s largest ancient city. It was clear that the river Ganges was vital to the people who reside near it, but what exactly have the people done to revive the river?

 

Governmental Action

 

 

The Ganges River provides the state with an array of ecosystem services; it is the source of irrigation water for one of the main exports of India: rice. It also possesses great hydroelectric power, and garners economy through tourism, where the holy city of Varanasi alone saw over 300,000 foreign visitors and 5 million domestic tourists annually.

Evidently, the Ganges is an essential nature resource to the state’s economy, which is why there was an attempt to safeguard this resource with the implementation of the Yamuna Action Plan (YAP). This plan was separated into 3 phases. Phase 1, which took place from 1993-2003, aims to eliminate informal sources of waste disposal into the channel through expanding sewage networks and public infrastructures such as toilets. Phase 1 also planned to educate the public on pollutive behaviours. Unfortunately, due to lack of foresight on a population boom, the new infrastructures built were unable to cater to the new 6.7 million, as it was initially planned to support only 3.5 million people. The second phase involves further capacity building, and the start of water testing to check the progress of the action plan. It was found that after a whole 20 years since the plan ensued, dissolved oxygen concentrations remained low and heavy metal percentages are almost the same pre-YAP, indicating meagre success (Singh and Parmar, 2015).

 

Leaving the river alone

It seems that hard engineering methods implemented by the states saw extremely limited improvements, and that perhaps, should not be the direction to look into for a sustainable restorative strategy. To contain the recent outbreak of COVID-19, the Indian government called for a 60-days lockdown, and industries came to a halt. This was when a miracle happened.

 

As seen from the above photos, the Ganges River finally ran clear, no longer plagued with phosphate foams that indicated polluted waters. It seemed unbelievable that with just a short 3-month break from constant consumption of industrial waste, the river was able to restore itself to such a healthy state. For this self-restorative function of the river, we will have to thank the various microorganisms that regulated oxidation and reductions of the fecal materials and several metals in the channel. Waters of the Yamuna River saw revivals of dissolved oxygen levels during the lockdown, indicating life in the river (Mohammad et al., 2020).

 

Moving forward

Alas, when the economy is again allowed to run, and industries begin functioning again, the frothy waters return. However, the sight of pure waters of Mother Ganges runs fresh in people’s mind; perhaps seeing the effects of proper pollution control can motivate a stronger urge in mitigating pollution of the river, and return the Ganges back to its initial purifying state that it is revered for.

 

References

Mohammad, A., Kumar, R., & Parveen, S. (2020). Reduction in Water Pollution in Yamuna River due to lockdown under COVID-19 Pandemic.

Singh, V., & Parmar, S. (2015). Water Quality Parameters of River Yamuna in Delhi After 20 Years of the Yamuna Action Plan. International Journal of Science and Nature, 6.