Though 80 percent villages along the banks of Ganga have become open defecation free (ODF), a lot remains to be done on the untreated sewerage and waste disposal fronts.
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When the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was announced in October 2014, one of the priorities was to eradicate open defecation and rampant dumping of waste from villages and towns situated along the banks of river Ganga. Ganga, which flows for a length of 2,525 kilometres and passes through the five crucial states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. For years, open defecation and dumping of waste was a common culture across rural India, and the towns and villages near Ganga were no exception. Eradicating the practice of open defecation from the 5,169 villages has posed significant challenges for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan for multiple reasons.
An Age Old Practice
Defecating across the banks of a water body as immense as the Ganga is a practice which is centuries old, passed on from one generation to other. The abundance of water in the form of Ganga has allowed people to not only defecate openly but also bathe and wash clothes and utensils right alongside the river, resulting in flow of faecal sewage. Apart from individuals, industries too are guilty of using the Ganga to dump their waste. The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation estimates that 764 industries release about 500 million litres of wastewater every day. Though 48 industrial units which were dumping waste in the river were asked to shut down right after ‘Namami Gange’ was launched, the discharge of untreated wastewater remains a matter of concern.
The Centre State Disputes
The relationship between the Union and State governments has played a tricky part in the implementation of several Ganga cleaning schemes. Rs. 5780 Crores has been released to Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MoDWS) for construction since 2014 of toilets in 1651 Gram Panchayats of 5 Ganga Basin States. But out of the targeted 15,27,105 toilets, MoDWS has been able to complete construction of only 8,53,397 toilets accounting for just 55 per cent, from 2014 to 2016. Often the requisite funds are not released on behalf of the state governments, which result in delayed toilet construction. The difference in the attitude of state governments can be gauged from their expenditure towards construction of toilets near the Ganga basin.
West Bengal which has spent Rs.584 crores of in the building of toilets in the state remains one of the highest spending states under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, utilizing about 87 per cent of its allocated Rs. 667 crores of funds. Bihar on the other hand has spent merely Rs. 73 crores of its allocated Rs.404 crores, utilising only 18 per cent of its Swachh Bharat funds. The villages in Bihar along the banks of river Ganga have performed the worst in terms of becoming open defecation free. Only 238 of the 795 villages situated near the bank of Ganga have attained the open defecation free status.
Dysfunctional Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs)
Similar to the local population residing near Ganga, local industries have also treated the river as their favourite dumpyard for decades. Industrial units in cities like Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi and Patna have dumped sewage without ensuring treatment of any kind. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) estimates that 80 per cent of the sewage which is dumped into the Ganga exceeds permissible standards of fecal coliform, a bacteria known notoriously for causing waterborne diseases. 64 sewage treatment plants are spread across 5 states but 20 of them are non-functional. Of the ones which are functional, these are collectively responsible for treating some 2,723.30 million litres/day (MLD) of sewage while treatment capacity is for 1,208.8 MLD. The functional STPs are treating more than 125 per cent of their capacity, which puts immense pressure on the machineries treating the waste, and drains them of their performance lifeline, and results in untimely closure of the plants. The provision to treat industrial waste and sewage separately remains non-existent and hence sewage and wastewater is discharged into the river directly, without treatment.
