Beginning in the western Himalayas and winding through India and Bangladesh, for centuries Hindus have regarded the Ganges as a holy river. Its basin is home to hundreds of millions of people and is among the most densely populated areas in the entire world. However, despite its sanctity, it has become highly polluted and a significant factor in the poor levels of sanitation in India. People use the Ganges as a means of waste disposal for anything and everything, from untreated sewage to animal carcasses. A traditional ritual for Hindus, involving casting the ashes of the deceased into the river, revered to be a direct path into heaven, has also been linked to contaminating the waters.

As of 2021, approximately 16% of India’s population live in poverty, often living with limited access to clean water and sanitation and as a consequence are at risk of contracting dangerous diseases. River pollution is a substantial factor in poor sanitation in India and the high levels of waterborne diseases, such as cholera, affect the most poverty-stricken and claim the lives of more than 1 million children in India every year. Due to the levels of poverty and the limited access to safe water, there have been many calls to clean up and regulate the waste that is polluting the Ganges River.

Namami Ganga

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Namami Ganga campaign during his election campaign, which aims to improve the reduction and proper management of pollution and environmental conservation and restoration of the river. The success of this initiative could help contribute to improving sanitation in India. With approximately 200 million liters of untreated sewage emptying into the river daily in Varanasi alone, it needs proper regulation and cleanup.

The main elements of Namami Ganga include sewage treatment infrastructure, river cleaning, afforestation, industrial waste overseeing, river-front development, bio-diversity and promoting public awareness,

A decade later, the campaign seems to be making good progress. It helped complete a total of 99 sewage management projects and another 48 are underway across several states in India and multiple locations have launched means of floating solid waste collection and disposal along the Ganges.

Namami Ganga has launched projects in collaboration with several wildlife organizations to help restore the local biodiversity and forest large amounts of land, which can combat soil erosion and flooding. The campaign is also working to increase public awareness with workshops, seminars and activities to promote local participation and understanding of the mission, according to its website.

Thanks to the initiative, the Ganges has seen great improvements over the last decade, and there is great optimism for its efforts to continue and help improve sanitation in India.

Sankat Mochan Foundation

Although Namami Ganga has made great strides since 2014, other organizations and initiatives, such as the Sankat Mochan Foundation (SMF) have been raising awareness and doing vital work too.

First established in Varanasi in 1982, the SMF is a non-profit and non-political organization that has been working to combat the Ganges River’s environmental damage. The SMF centers its mission on the eradication of sewage pollution in the Ganges, an objective all the more relevant in Varanasi, a holy city on the Ganges, where many Hindus come to visit and practice the spiritual act of bathing in the Ganges’ sacred waters that have now become highly polluted.

According to its website, some of the SMF’s key objectives include the promotion of education and health care for the region’s poorer communities, the protection and advocacy of Varanasi’s time-honored traditions and customs and the environmental restoration and conservation of the Ganges.

The Future of Sanitation in India

The clean-up of the River Ganges seems key to safety and prosperity on both a health, social and environmental scale and could help bring into fruition what the SMF has been advocating for since the 1980s and contribute to the ongoing mission to improve sanitation in India. Nanami Ganga has the potential to reduce the threat of many diseases and significantly improve the quality of life of those who depend on the river in their daily lives, as well as those who bathe in its waters in reverence to its sanctity as one of the holiest water sources in all of Hinduism.

– Rose Williams
Photo: Unsplash