The Ganga cleaning saga

THE National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) dissatisfaction over the cleaning up of the Ganga despite 35 years of non-stop lip service and open-handed grant of public funds is hardly surprising.  The NGT is but the latest in a long list of informal and institutional approbation about the black hole that the Ganga cleaning mission has become. The NGT may be on the ball by asking for a survey to seek the views of citizens in organic contact with the river. For, in this suggestion lies the embryo of a society-centric approach that has been missing while governments, across several regimes, were sold on an engineering-centric approach that emphasised the setting up of sewage treatment plants which have proved inadequate to the task of coping with the ever-increasing sources of pollution.

PM Narendra Modi raised expectations, despite the hoary history of failure, when he juxtaposed his parliamentary constituency and ideological bent to promise a turnaround for the river. But in addition to the historical drag due to the multiplicity of government organisations spilt between the Centre and the states, the new plan suffered from an inappropriate choice for the chief executive. A chastened Centre has submitted an 18-year plan to the Supreme Court that forms the fulcrum of its exertions.

The shabby results from the third major Central attempt to clean the Ganga is all the more galling because PM Modi had made it into a personal mission and then elevated it to the level of a national endeavour. In a resource-strapped society, where personal interests take precedence over the larger good, a mighty river of the scale of the Ganga can hardly be rejuvenated by engineering solutions alone. The mission has to become a civilisational enterprise where people all along the river’s course are educated about the havoc pollution is causing to their lives. The next logical step ought to be a resolute political will to reshape and redirect human activity. That may be a bridge too far. For now, it would suffice if governments along the Ganga were to implement the judiciary’s directions in letter and spirit.