Pollution of Ganga

More than 400 million people live along the Ganges River. An estimated 60,000 persons ritually bathe daily in the river, which is considered holy by Indians. In the Hindu religion it is said to flow from the lotus feet of Vishnu (for Vaisnava devotees) or the hair of Shiva (for Saivites). The spiritual and religious significance could be compared to what the Nile river meant to the ancient Egyptians. While the Ganges may be considered holy, there are some problems associated with the ecology. It is filled with chemical wastes, sewage and even the remains of human and animal corpses which carry major health risks by either direct bathing in the water (e.g.: Bilharziasis infection), or by drinking (the Fecal-oral route).

The combination of bacteriophages and large populations of people bathing in the river have apparently produced a self-purification effect, in which water-bourne bacteria such as dysentery and cholera are killed off, preventing large-scale epidemics. The river also has an unusual ability to retain dissolved oxygen. [Self-purification effect of bacteriophages, oxygen retention mystery: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17134270 Mystery Factor Gives Ganges a Clean Reputation] by Julian Crandall Hollick. National Public Radio.]

Upstream from Varanasi, one of the major pilgrimage sites along the river, the water is comparatively pure, having a low Biochemical oxygen demand and fecal coliform count. Studies conducted in 1983 on water samples taken from the right bank of the Ganga at Patna confirm that escheria coliform (E.Coli.), fecal streptococci and vibrio cholerae organisms die two to three times faster in the Ganga than in water taken from the rivers Son and Gandak and from dug wells and tube wells in the same area. [http://www.members.tripod.com/sankatmochan/GangaPollution.htm]

ee also

* Ganga Action Plan
* Sankat Mochan Foundation
* Veer Bhadra Mishra
* Ernest Hanbury Hankin

References

External links

* [http://envfor.nic.in/nrcd/ National River Conservation Directorate]