Madhya Pradesh Assembly declares Narmada living entity

The Madhya Pradesh government has passed a resolution granting river Narmada the status of a living
entity and committed itself to the protection of its legal rights.

A month ago, the Uttarakhand High Court had declared Ganga, Yamuna and their tributaries living
entities with the status of a legal person.

Important Takeaways from above News for Dena Bank PO Exam-

Madhya Pradesh Assembly declares Narmada living entityIt provides all legal rights of a person to ensure
'Conservation of Aquatic Biodiversity linked with purity and continual flow of the River'Uttarakhand has
previously declared Ganga and Yamuna Rivers as living entitiesShivraj Singh Chouhan is the CM of MP

For giving a boost to Namami Gange Programme, Union Minister of Water Resources, River
Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti has announced the inauguration of 231
projects at various locations in Uttrakhand, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana and Delhi today.
These project will involve modernization and redevelopment of Ghats and crematoriums, development
of sewage infrastructure and treatment, afforestation, tree plantation, pilot drain project, interceptor
drain project, trash skimmers and conservation of biodiversity.

In this regards the main function will be held at Haridwar which will be attended by Uttrakhand CM Shri
Harish Rawat and Union Ministers Shri Nitin Gadkari, Choudhary Birender Singh, Shri Mahesh Sharma
and Sushri Uma Bharti. Referring to Ganga Gram Yojana, Sushri Bharti stated that 400 villages along the
river Ganga will be developed as Ganga Gram in phase-I. 13 IITs have adopted five villages each for
development as Ganga Grams. The Minister also said that eight biodiversity centers will be developed
along Ganga for a restoration of identified priority species. These centers will be developed at Rishikesh,
Dehradun, Narora, Allahabad, Varanasi, Bhagalpur, Sahibganj and Barrack pore.

an RTI query has revealed that the waters of the Ganga along Haridwar are not even fit for
bathing. Tests were conducted at 11 locations in Uttarakhand over a distance of 294km along the
river, taking into account four main indicators of river water quality – temperature, dissolved
oxygen, biological oxygen demand and coliform (bacteria).

On most of these indicators the Ganga failed to meet acceptable standards, showing high levels
of bio-pollutants and toxic materials. There’s no denying that rivers in India are highly revered.
Considered as sources of life in a largely agrarian country, rivers have cultural, spiritual and
religious connotations. However, it is also a fact that physical protection of rivers in India is very
poor. With greater industrialisation and urbanisation, rivers have increasingly become
depositories of urban waste and industrial effluents.
The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) has seen more than Rs 1,800 crore spent over three decades on
cleaning the Ganga with little improvement. The current government intends to spend around Rs
20,000 crore over five years on the Namami Gange Project. But apart from minor variations on
GAP, the new project offers more of the old focus on sewage treatment plants. The problem with
this top-down approach is that it fails to account for the lack of coordination among the various
states through which rivers flow. In fact, coordination on this score is often mired in Centrestate
and state-to-state politics. Given this scenario, it would be far better to push a bottom-up
approach where people living along rivers become primary agents of change. This is best
exemplified by the case of a village panchayat in Kerala’s Alappuzha district reviving the
Kuttemperoor channel of the Pamba and Achankovil rivers. It’s time to translate our reverence
for rivers into actual conservation efforts.

Rivers are the arteries of a country. Men, plants, and animals cannot live
without water.

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River pollution in India has now reached a critical point. Almost every
river system in India is now polluted to a great extent. As assessed by
the scientists of the National Environmental Engineering Research
Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, nearly 70 per cent of river water in India is
polluted. India has five major river systems, namely, the Ganga, the
Brahmaputra and Indus river systems in north, and the peninsular,
east coast and the west coast river systems in the south.

Many large rivers are closely associated with Indian culture and
heritage. The pollution situation in our country is worse than that of
some of the industrialised countries of Europe and America. The
Ganga, the most sacred and important river of India, is regarded as
the cradle of Indian civilisation. The 2,525 km long river starts from
Gangotri in the Himalayas and joins the Bay of Bengal, at Ganga
Sagar.

According to a report of the Central Pollution Control Board, despite

river Ganga’s considerable resilience as a self-purifying and fast-
flowing river, its organic pollution load is significantly high. At
Kanpur, 45 tanneries and 10 textile mills are the major sources of
liquid wastes discharged into the river. The wastes contain heavy
organic load and putrefied material. It is estimated that 1,400 million
litres of sewage and 200 million litres of industrial effluents are being
discharged everyday into the river Ganga.

The BOD (106 tonnes/day), total solids (2,308 tonnes/day) and

suspended solids (1,251 tonnes/day) are not only very high but also
exceed the prescribed limits of the Bureau of Indian Standards.
Recently, discharges from the Barauni Oil Refinery caused gross
pollution along a long stretch of the main Ganga.

Preliminary observations were made on the pollution of the river Kali

and a limnological survey was made of the river with reference to fish
mortality. The main factories, which pollute the stream are sugar,
distillery, tin, glycerin, paints, soap works, spinning, rayon, silk and
yarn.

A major step to control and clean the river Ganga had been taken in
1984, when the Central Ganga Authority was established to implement
the Ganga Action Plan. This plan has identified 27 cities and about 120
factories as points of pollution from Haridwar to Hooghly. Similarly,
the Yamuna Action Plan has also been devised. But till now nothing
substantial has come out and there is a long way to go.

A survey was carried out in 1965 along 21 km stretch of the river

Gomati in the vicinity of Lucknow receiving 19.84 million gallons of
wastes per day from pulp and paper factory, distillery and sewage.
Heavy fish mortality was reported in Rihand reservoir due to high free
chlorine content (62 ppm) discharged from Kanoria

Chemical Industries The organic wastes from a sugar factory and a

distillery cause year-round pollution in the small river Dhaha. A case
of heavy fish mortality was recorded in 1962 and 1966. Wastes from
different factories, such as those engaged in the manufacture of paper,
chemicals, sugar, cement, etc., are the major sources, discharging over
4 million gallons of wastes per day into the river Sone.
The river Hooghly at Kolkata receives wastes from various types of
factories dealing with pulp and paper, distillery, tannery, textile, heavy
chemicals, paints and varnishes, shellac, hydrogenated oil, matches,
cycle rim, petroleum oil, tar pigment, insecticides and fungicides.

Of these, wastes from paper and pulp, distillery, chemicals, textiles,

shellacs and a number of domestic outfalls contribute substantially to
the pollution complex. River Damodar, which flows through the coal
belt area in Bihar, is also a seriously polluted river which is the
receptacle for wastes released from large number of industries such as
the Sindri unit of the Fertiliser Corporation of India, the Bihar
government’s superphosphates factory and the associated cement
company.

The entire Asansol-Durgapur industrial belt on lower Damodar valley

suffers from severe pollution caused by the discharge of wastes
containing high phenol, cyanide and ammonical nitrogen.

The indiscriminate discharge of large volumes of highly putrefied

wastes creates serious pollution problems in the river lb (Orissa) of the
Mahanadi river system. The river Bhadra (Krishna river system)
receives effluents from pulp and paper and steel industries.

Industries generate a significant quality of waste water, which

ultimately finds its way to a stream/river. Industrial discharges
containing toxic and hazardous substances contribute to the severe
kind of pollution in the aquatic systems. Industrial development is
largely because of the production of chemicals resulting in the
generation of toxic and hazardous substances which have been
continuously on the increase during the last four decades.

Industrial effluents, though comparatively lesser in volume, cause

serious menace to aquatic environment and biotic communities
including fish and ultimately affect man through the food chain.

River Godavari is polluted by the effluents of paper mill at

Rajahmundry (Andhra Pradesh). The river Kalu in Mumbai receives
highly acidic and untreated wastes from Amar Dye and Chemical
Company, India Dyes, Century Rayon, National Rayon, Central
Chemicals, etc.

Effluents of the Gwalior Rayon Factory at Mavoor, about 21 km from

Beypore, have created a pollution hazard in the river Chaliyar at
Calicut, Kerala. Large scale fish mortality in 1966 was attributed to
highly putrefy organic matter creating almost anaerobic conditions in
the river with very low or nil oxygen.

In Tamil Nadu, river Cooum at Chennai gets polluted by the washings

from a large number of slums, cattle yards, over flow from sewage
pumping station, wastes from automobile workshops and many
factories. Nearly 300 tanneries are spread along the banks of river
Palar over a stretch of 120 km from Vaniambadi to Ranipet.

The waste water discharge from these tanneries affects the ground
water quality because of sodium and chlorides present in the tannery
waste. River Cauvery is polluted by Mettur Chemical and Industrial
Corporation Ltd. River Vaigai receives effluents from many chemical
and soap factories and large quantities of municipal sewage.

The rate of pollution in South Indian Rivers seems to be higher than

those in the North Indian Rivers. The main reason for this is the
summer season during which the icebergs get melted and the melted
water is drained into the major North Indian Rivers like the Ganga,
the Brahmaputra, etc. During the rainy season rivers get a good
current from the natural showers itself.

The only possibility of pollution for such rivers is by the catchment of

pollutants when they pass through the urban and industrial belts,
whereas the South Indian Rivers depend mainly on the north-east and
the south-west monsoons. Deforestation also affects rainfall and
ultimately changes the river flow in South Indian Rivers. Already,
these rivers are under stress due to lack of rainfall caused by
deforestation and pollution is an additional/secondary stress.
Access to safe drinking water remains an urgent need as only 72 per
cent of the population in urban area receives well treated water supply.
The situation in rural areas is much worse. In India, almost all surface
water sources are contaminated and unfit for human consumption.
The diseases commonly caused due to contaminated water are
diarrhoea, trachoma intestinal worms, hepatitis, etc.

Recent WHO data show that about 21 per cent of all communicable
diseases in India are water-borne diseases. Epidemiological studies
have shown that diarrhoea and intestinal worm infections account for
an estimated 10 per cent of the total burden of disease.

An uncontrolled disposal of urban wastes into water bodies, open

dumps and poorly designed landfills causes surface water and ground
water contamination. Industrial wastes containing heavy metals, such
as mercury, chromium, lead and arsenic, can threaten or destroy
marine life. Health hazards such as malaria, filariasis, hepatitis and
cholera can also spread.

The epidemic of jaundice is also a result of contaminated water supply.

In 1955-56, in Delhi, about 29,300 persons developed jaundice,
following contamination of the drinking water supply from contents of
a severed drain from Najafgarh in West Delhi. Similarly, epidemic of
hepatitis-E has been caused due to drinking of polluted water. In
India, major incidence of hepatitis epidemics has occurred in various
urban centres in recent years as shown in Figure 16.2.
A few remedies to control the water pollution are:
1. Industries should enforce standards for water effluents;

2. The Pollution Control Boards must enforce the laws strictly;

3. adequate sewage disposal facilities should be developed, so that

sewage is not directly released into the water stream;

4. the sewage and water treatment plant should be established by

every municipal body;

5. for small and medium-sized industries, which cannot afford effluent

plants, combined treatment plants be established;

6. a pollution tax be imposed, especially on industries responsible for

water pollution;

7. more and more Sulabh type toilets be built;

8. action plans concerning water pollution should be completed within
specified period; and

9. Above all, awareness among people about sanitation and its related
impact on their health should be promoted.
Home ›› Water Pollution
National River Conservation Plan (NRCP) is a centrally funded scheme launched in 1995 aimed at
preventing the pollution of rivers. It provoide information of each state on amount sanctioned under
NRCP to which city and for what purpose. Purposes included under the plan are construction of STP,
river front development, low cost sanitation, afforestation etc. The details of number of schemes
sanctioned and total expenditure for each state is provided.