Water Pollution in India

Water pollution has emerged as one of the gravest environmental threats in India. Its biggest sources are city sewage and industrial waste that are discharged untreated into the rivers. Despite the best efforts of the government, only about 10 per cent of the waste water that is generated in the cities is treated and the rest is discharged into the rivers.

Water pollution is a reality of human existence. Activities like agriculture and industrial production generate water pollution apart from the biological waste. In India, every year, approximately 50,000 million litres of wastewater, both industrial and domestic, is generated in urban areas. In some cases even radio-active materials are discharged into the rivers bodies by some companies, who for the sake of saving money on water treatment, throw all the norms to the winds.

All efforts by the government to put a check on wastewater management have failed as the treatment systems require high capital investment for installation and also high cost is incurred on operational maintenance. The cost of establishing and running a wastewater treatment plant in a factory can be as high as 20 percent of the total expenditure. Hence despite the presence of government norms, effluents continue to flow into the river bodies untreated.

On the other hand, the government of India is spending millions of rupees every year on water pollution control. According to rough estimates, Indian government has spent nearly 20,000 crore rupees till now on various schemes in India, like the Ganga Action Plan and Yamuna Action Plan, to control water pollution in rivers. But no positive results have been achieved as yet. The government should realise that all efforts to get the river-bodies free from water pollution will fail unless the process of untreated industrial and other wastewater getting into the water bodies is not stopped.

Hence the government should, instead of spending money on pollution control schemes, divert its resources to encourage wastewater treatment in agriculture and industrial sector. The money spent on pollution control should be spent on giving subsidies to the industries which generate wastewater and on strict monitoring of their adherence to the norms.

It should not be forgotten that only 0.3 per cent of total water available on this planet is fit for consumption for human beings, animals & plants. The remaining 99.7 per cent is present either as sea water or as glaciers on the mountains. Hence ignoring the issue of water pollution any longer would mean inviting a Third World War which would be fought for the control of water resources.

GANGA ACTION PLAN

The Ganga action plan was, launched by Shri Rajeev Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India on 14 Jan. 1986 with the main objective of pollution abatement, to improve the water quality by Interception, Diversion and treatment of domestic sewage and present toxic and industrial chemical wastes from identified grossly polluting units entering in to the river. The other objectives of the Ganga Action Plan are as under.

·        Control of non-point pollution from agricultural run off, human defecation, cattle wallowing and throwing of unburnt and half burnt bodies into the river.

·        Research and Development to conserve the biotic, diversity of the river to augment its productivity.

·        New technology of sewage treatment like Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) and sewage treatment through afforestation has been successfully developed.

·        Rehabilitation of soft-shelled turtles for pollution abatement of river have been demonstrated and found useful.

·        Resource recovery options like production of methane for energy generation and use of aquaculture for revenue generation have been demonstrated.

·        To act as trend setter for taking up similar action plans in other grossly polluted stretches in other rivers.

·        The ultimate objective of the GAP is to have an approach of integrated river basin management considering the various dynamic inter-actions between abiotic and biotic eco-system.