Rivers in India are considered holy. The Uttarakhand High Court has recently declared that the Ganga and the Yamuna are living entities. But it has been reported that the Ganga near Haridwar is so unclean that it is not fit for bathing. The report is based on 4 main indicators of water quality- temperature, dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand and coliform (bacteria). The Ganga apparently does not meet acceptable standards. Rivers in India are not merely holy but they are also the life blood of Indian agriculture. 50% of the country’s population subsist on agriculture. However the physical protection of our rivers leaves much to be desired. Greater industrialisation and urbanisation have been polluting the waters of the rivers depositing urban waste and industrial effluents in them. The Centre has no doubt taken steps to meet the crisis. The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) has been taken in hand and Rs 1800 crore has been spent on it in the last three decades. The Modi government proposes to spend over Rs 20,000 crore in 5 years on the Namami Ganga Project. But there has been little improvement in sewage treatment and plants have not been modernised.
Action taken by New Delhi is faulted on several grounds. There are clashes between the Centre and the States and also between the sates themselves. The river Danube flowing through a number of central European countries may provide guidelines in removing these clashes. There is also conflict between environmental needs and the building of dams to generate hydro power as in Arunanchal Pradesh. The solution seems to be for people living in riverine tracts of land to bring about improvement in the state of the rivers. It has been done satisfactorily in a riverine district of Kerala.
In Meghalaya, most of our rivers are dying or are dead due to heavy siltation and pollution due to human activities. No sustained attempts have been made to regenerate these rivers. The two important rivers of Shillong – the Umkhrah and Umshyrpi are a stark example of how humans have killed these rivers and turned them into drains. But does anyone care beyond the expected crocodile tears shed by the citizenry?