Manmohan Singh’s move to declare the Ganga as the country’s first national river, for direct management by a river basin authority that he will head, is well-intended but little more than a re-enactment of what Rajiv Gandhi had done in 1984. The chief difference between the two is that while Mr Gandhi took the initiative at the beginning of his term as Prime Minister, giving himself ample time to show results (which, sadly, remained elusive), Dr Singh is doing so towards the end of his term—with hardly any time left for worthwhile action, let alone results. The new avatar of the Ganga River Basin Authority is mooted to be a fully empowered body for planning, implementing and monitoring all activities that impact the Ganga along its entire stretch of 2,510 km, form the mountains of Uttarakhand to the Bay of Bengal. The objectives are to save this vital and iconic rival from dying, and restoring the purity of its water, which has degraded and become unusable for drinking, and even for bathing or washing clothes.
The timing of the move has bred some unfortunate misgivings, for it is being viewed in political quarters as a pre-poll gimmick to gain voter sympathies in the Hindi heartland, through which the river flows. Questions are being asked as to why the Centre continues to delay acceding to the long-pending demand for constituting a similar body for the Brahmaputra. There is also the danger of fanning Centre-state and inter-state river water conflicts, as regulating water flows is a state subject.
These misgivings may be unfounded, and little more than political conspiracy-theorising in the run-up to general elections. The real issue is whether this initiative, too, will meet the fate of the Ganga Action Plan of a quarter-century ago. That the Rs 1,500 crore spent on that project virtually went down the drain has been confirmed by reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), as well as of the amicus curiae appointed by the Supreme Court to monitor progress. Even the initiatives taken by the apex court have achieved little, because the edicts that it has issued for closing down the tanneries around the river and for the treatment of all the sewage and industrial waste being released into it, have been futile exercises. Nearly a billion litres of untreated sewage continues to pour into the river along a course dotted with 100 towns and cities, small and big. Less than half of the major effluent-discharging industries are reckoned to have set up treatment plants, and a sizable number out of these either do not function or are sub-standard installations. The net result, as corroborated by the Central Pollution Control Board, is that the quality of Ganga water is worse now than it was in 1984. What heightens the danger to the survival of this once mighty and sparklingly clean river is the revelation that the Gangotri glacier, which is the river’s source, has been shrinking by over 18 metres a year. This makes it imperative that decisive action is taken to restore the health of this vital river. If the Prime Minister’s move succeeds in doing so, it will indeed be a boon for the country.
