Ganges water pollution and its management through religion

Abstract

The Ganges, a major river of the Indian subcontinent, associated with myth and reality of people, is becoming polluted on its way down to the Indian Ocean. The pollution starts from the beginning itself but the prominent cities which are adding substantially to the woes of the Ganges are Kanpur., Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna and Calcutta. The major polluting industries are the leather industries that use large amounts of Chromium and other chemicals, and much of it finds its way into the meager flow of the Ganges Besides , a large volume of waste-estimated at nearly 1 billion liters of mostly untreated raw sewage is dumped in the river per day. Also inadequate cremation procedures contribute to a large of partially burnt or unburnt, corpse floating down the Ganga, not to mention livestock corpses. The 'Ganges Action Plan' was set up which formed a number of waste treatment plants and most of the work was limited to monitoring of the various parameters of the water from time to time. But today, there is an urgent need of arousing the religious sentiments of the people of the region who have a forages revered the Ganges not just as a river but as a Goddess. The self-purification of the people will help in maintaining the long-standing self-purification property of the river Ganges intact.