The Ganga in Haridwar is not fit for bathing, and water in the district fails almost all parameters of safety, according to the Central Pollution Control Board.
In a reply to an RTI application filed by The Times of India, the board has said the biological oxygen demand (BOD) levels should be less than 3 mg per litre for bathing purposes. But the levels go up to 6.4 mg per litre in the river's water.
The Uttarakhand high court had recently conferred the status of living entity on the widely revered rivers Ganga and Yamuna.
Justices Rajeev Sharma and Alok Singh of the Uttarakhand high court, who declared the Ganga and the Yamuna as living beings, did so invoking the tradition of granting the status of juridical person to the deity of a Hindu temple, established by Indian courts during the colonial period when they were called upon to adjudicate on disputes over temple property.
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RM Bhardwaj, senior scientist of the CPCB told the newspaper that four main indicators of river water quality were taken into account when examining the 296 km stretch. These included temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), BOD and coliform (bacteria). Clinical tests of water samples showed high levels of BOD, coliform and other toxic materials around Haridwar district, said
According to the CPCB report, the coliform values should be 500 MPN/100ml or less for bathing purposes. But the total coliform value in Haridwar is between 90 MPN (most probable number) per 100 ml to 1,600 MPN per 100 ml.
The acceptable limit for DO is 5 mg per litre or more but in Haridwar it is 4 mg to 10.6 mg per litre.
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While speaking in Lok Sabha last year, water resources and Ganga rejuvenation minister Uma Bharti has expressed confidence that the river would be cleaned by July 2018 and that the return of aqua life in the river would be the biggest benchmark to prove the clean up success story.
The Ganga, which runs through Uttarakhand, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, is 2,525 kilometres long.
It is people who revere the Ganga as mother and goddess that cremate about 32,000 bodies on its banks each year causing an estimated 300 tonnes of half-burnt human flesh to float in its waters. Most, if not all, of those who own the factories which pollute the river with effluents as well as their employees are people who regularly seek Mother Ganga’s blessings. So, presumably, are those who control the civic bodies which are responsible, through acts of omission or commission, for the dumping of about 1.5 billion litres of untreated sewage in the Ganga each day.
"Haridwar has emerged as an industrial and tourist hub and unless sewage treatment plants are installed and water discharge quality is monitored strictly, the ghats will continue to remain polluted,” said environmentalist Anil Joshi.
Not only sacred rivers like the Ganga and the Yamuna but all water bodies in the country are getting polluted because central and state authorities are failing to take steps which they are required to do.
Soon after assuming office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who represents Varanasi in the Lok Sabha, launched a programme, named Namami Ganga, to clean-up the river. Last year, in response to a query by Aishwarya Sharma, a Lucknow school-girl, under Right to Information Act, the Prime Minister’s office stated that in 2014-15 the Centre allocated Rs 2,053 crore for the Ganga mission but spent only Rs 326 crore. In the 2025-16 budget a provision of Rs 2,750 crore was made for the programme but it was later cut down to Rs 1,650 crore, and the actual expenditure fell short of even that amount. How is grant of status of juridical person to the rivers a solution to this problem?
