Verdensbanken har lanceret “The National Ganga River Basin Project”, som med en milliard dollars (henved seks mia. kr.) i bagagen skal ophjælpe flod-bækkenet, der er hjem for knapt halvdelen af alle indere – den hellige flod har også god brug for det.
Worshiped as a living goddess by millions of hindus, the Ganga river also provides economic sustenance and environmental services to almost half of India’s population.
Despite this iconic status, the Ganga today is facing formidable pollution pressures; more than three billion (milliarder) liters of sewage (kloakvand /spildevand) flow into the river every day. But now, there are plans to rejuvenate it and create a clean Ganga.
WASHINGTON D.C, 23 March 2015 (World Bank): The Ganga is India’s most important and iconic river.
It flows down from its glacial source in the high Himalayas to course through five states in the northern plains before draining into the swirling waters of the Bay of Bengal through the Sunderbans delta, the largest mangrove system in the world.
Along its 2,500 km journey, the river enriches huge swathes of agricultural land and sustains a long procession of towns and cities.
The sprawling Ganga basin, an area of 860,000 sq km spread across 11 states, is the world’s most populous river basin.
It is home to more than 600 million Indians, close to half the country’s population; and over 40 percent of the country’s GDP is generated in this region.
Fertile region – but poor people
The basin provides more than one-third of India’s surface water, 90 percent of which is used for irrigation.
Paradoxically, this fertile region is also home to some of the poorest sections of India’s population, with more than 200 million people living below the national poverty line.
As India’s holiest river, the Ganga has a cultural and spiritual significance that far transcends the basin’s boundaries.
It is worshipped as a living goddess and, since time immemorial, people from across the country have flocked to the many historic temple towns the lie along the river’s banks to pray and bathe in its flowing waters.
Enormous pollution in the Ganga
Despite this iconic status and religious heritage, the Ganga today is facing formidable pollution pressures, along with the attendant threats to its biodiversity and environmental sustainability.
An ever-growing population, together with inadequately planned urbanization and industrialization, has affected the quality of the river’s waters.
Today, the Ganga’s waters are sullied by the incessant outpouring of sewage, as well as by the large volumes of solid and industrial waste that are churned out by human and economic activity along the river’s banks.
The absence of adequate infrastructure, along with weak environmental governance and little technical expertise to manage these extreme pollution pressures, has resulted in the rapid deterioration of the water’s quality in recent decades.
Only a fraction of wastewater is treated
The Ganga’s mainstem runs through 50 major Indian cities, almost all of which have a population of more than 50,000 people.
These towns and cities generate some 3 billion (tre milliarder) litres of sewage every day, only a fraction of which is treated before it reaches the river.
While domestic sewage accounts for 70-80 percent of the wastewater that flows into the Ganga, Industrial effluents add another 15 percent, with far-reaching impacts on human and aquatic health due to their toxic nature.
And, in the absence of adequate solid waste management in most cities, mounds (bjerge) of uncollected garbage (affald) add to the pervasive pollution.
World Bank Assistance
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