Points

First and starting (Piham)

Namami Ganges is an economic agenda. The Government launched an
integrated Ganga conservation mission called 'Namami Gange' to arrest
the pollution of Ganga River and revive the river.
Environmental activists also remain unimpressed with the progress of the
Namami Gange Mission. Says the head of SANDRP, Himanshu Thakkar,
a critic of the Namami Gange, “The main issue with the Ganga is that of
governance. If the river is governed well from the top, it will take care of
many of the existential issues that it faces.”

1. Frreya: To clean the ganga the users have to even compromise their
uses of Gange in all kind of terms and the mainly surrounding
people are not agreeing for that
2. Kiara: The Modi government had launched the programme in 2015
with a total budgetary outlay of Rs 20,000 crore for the period
between 2014-15 and 31 December 2020 and till now they have used
9,000 crores still it is not clean. Almost half of the budget fund used
but still there is no effective change in the cleanliness.
3. Aanya: Firstly, Namani Gange will not succeed due to the highly
important industry that is boosting India’s economy and is polluting
the river Gange every day with maximum chemicals.
4. Mehaar: One reason for this failure could be the lack of effective
implementation of the Namami Gange plan, with funds lying
unspent. ... Every day, nearly three billion litres of sewage are
dumped into the Ganga, but existing sewage treatment capacity
along the river can only treat 2.25 billion litres per day.
5. Mahi: There is 0% of funds used in composite economic task force
and bioremediation, which is very much required for the Namami
Gange project.
6. Ayaan: The government has taken out time that is unnecessary to
complete it. It is going to take more than 25 years to complete the
project effectively.
7. Kishlay: Main aim was to lower the pollution, improve the quality
of water in the Ganga river by diversion and treatment of domestic
 sewage and toxic wastes from identified point sources of pollution.
But still these main aims of the project are not achieved due to lack
and misuse of many things.
8. Aaryan: As a result, the daily large-scale discharge of liquid and
solid waste into the Ganga remains unchecked. These discharges
dumped by big industries and surrounding people who lives near
the banks of Gange, Especially People from Varanasi.
9. Sparsh: The problem with sewage treatment plants - STPs is that
they are not able to get the total amount of influence, primarily due
to lack of sewerage network in the city. A total network of 2,071
km of new sewer line projects was sanctioned after Namami
Gange came into being but only 66.85 km has been laid.
10. Ayaan: The government is giving outdated and ineffective
technology for the project Of Namami Gange.
11.Mahi: Power breakdowns, which are common in Varanasi, causes a
sudden back pressure in the system and massive spillage of sewage
onto the roads and streets of the city.
12. Kishlay: The government's lack of innovation will affect the
program as the nearby village will face water scarcity causing a lot
of people to die. E.g lack of a water filters and a non-systematic
sewage system
13. Kiara: However, industrial effluents monitoring has done little to
check the rising presence of harmful elements in the river,
including chromium, evidenced in rising cases of cancer being
witnessed among communities living along the stretch.
14. Piham: All this is exacerbated by the decreasing flow in the Ganga.
A river’s flow is an important natural method through which waste
can be diluted. But, according to one study, the Ganga’s flow has
decreased by more than half since the 1970s partly because of dam
construction upstream. Changing river flow also has other
environmental implications. The Ganga is home to over 140 fish
species and 90 amphibian species – many of which are now
endangered.
15. Mehaar: A ground report says that sewage water still continues to
drain the flow of Ganga. Residents had been complaining about
this but to no avail. So, surrounding people are facing many
problems regarding their health due to lack of an effective sewage
system.
16. Aaryan: There is another fundamental problem that will ensure the
holy river remains dirty. A river is a self-purifying system only
 when water flows through it. The Ganga fails this basic test except
during monsoons. So, it’s not just about unclean Ganga. It is about
the existence of Ganga.
17. Sparsh: In the project, 31 sewage treatment plants (STP) were
proposed, but only 16 of these have been set up till date; 65 drains
were to be tapped, but till now, only 26 drains have been tapped, as
reported by Mirror Now. The report further says that construction
work on the banks of Ganga and of dams are hampering the river’s
natural flow.
18. Aaryan: The Narendra Modi government’s ambitious Ganga
cleaning programme ‘Namami Gange’ ends, the National Mission
for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has so far managed to spend just 29 per
cent of the sanctioned Rs 28,790 crore budget to complete 37 per
cent of the projects.
19. Aanya: The cleaning of the Ganga requires seamless coordination
between the agencies responsible for carrying out different tasks.
20. Frreya: Another major issue of diminished flow of water in India’s
rivers. Since the government has added a lot of dams in the project
so they are doing more harm than good to the project.
21. Kishlay: several activists who had taken part in the Clean Ganga
Movement alleged that they had objected to the construction of
dams near the Ganga as they feared that the activity would
compromise the natural flow of the river.
22.Mahi: Namami Gange’ will fail in absence of waste water
treatment: says by an expert
23. Kiara: Experts Vijay Dwivedi, an Allahabad-based activist, who
has formed a Ganga Sena which takes up cleaning of the river
regularly says that in monsoons the water level in Ganga is good
enough. “But you should have come in April or May. There is not
even knee-deep water. People graze cows, learn driving and play
cricket on the surface of Ganga.”
24. Mehaar: Gopal Nishad, a boatman at Sangam says, “Even the fish
die in summer due to lack of water. People coming to ghats usually
don’t go for boat rides in summer and it hits us badly.”
25.Aanya: Not only was there a lack in implementing the clean Ganga
project seen in the last five years, but the pollution level in the river
also rose more than it was before 2014.
26.Piham: Notably, in May 2018, the then Union Water Resource
Minister Nitin Gadkari declared March 2019 as the new deadline to
clean up Ganga. But the latest Mirror Now report indicates the total
 failure of this declaration, this shows that the Namami Gange
project is a big failure.
27.Ayaan: Ganga traverses is a programme where regulating the
finances becomes as big an issue as any other.
28.Frreya: project which should have been completed by March this year
in Varanasi, has so far attained only 12% progress. If this remains the
pace of work one can imagine how the Mission Clean Ganga will be
achieved by 2022, which is target of the BJP.
29.Last point Sparsh: In July this year, the National Green Tribunal
(NGT) gave a dressing down to the Centre over the failing state of
the river, as the top green court of the country also demanded
answers from the Centre as to how efficiently it had utilised Rs
7,000 crore over two years that has reportedly gone into the river
rejuvenation process.

Government Modi himself represents; lab tests found that bacterial

contamination was now higher than the levels in 2014. Also,
Research shows that Narendra Modi itself has doubted the success
of Namami Gange project.

Back up points
1. One of the failures of the Ganga Action plan was that it was a
completely bureaucratic exercise, top-down, end of the pipe interventions.
Lack of data on the water use and wastewater generation ensured that the
plans failed mierably.
2. An RTI reply revealed last year that pollution levels in the river are
higher than the levels recorded in 2014. Particularly in Varanasi,
which is the constituency that Modi himself represents, lab tests
found that bacterial contamination was now higher than the levels
in 2014.
3. As the government dilutes the 2012 notification on the Bhagirathi
Ecosensitive Zone, ever more dams come up on the tributaries and
Ganga’s fauna gets displaced due to the Ganga Jal Marg, it remains
to be seen what the government actually means by afforestation and
conserving Ganga’s biodiversity.
4. The plant at Dimapur has to be shut down completely during
monsoons. Thus for three to four months in a year all the sewage
 goes untreated. The biogas generator in the Dinapur STP does not
function hence the plant is ineffective due to shortage of power.
Tens of millions of Rupees have been wasted on its construction,
while the villages around the Dinapur STP suffer from polluted
water, water borne diseases and mosquitoes.
5. The Ganga Action Plan launched by the Government of India with
much fanfare has failed miserably in its objectives. The pollution
levels in Ganga are either same or even higher. What is worse, the
authorities, viz. the Jal Nigam and the State and Central
Governments refuse to acknowledge the failure, not to speak of
taking corrective action.
6. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in
December last year blamed “unused funds,” “the absence of a long-
term plan” and “lack of pollution abatement works” for obstructing
the Ganga cleaning process.
7.