Vice President Venkaiah Naidu was on a visit to northeast India in October 2021 to call for a nationwide campaign to rejuvenate the rivers while addressing a public meet there. The problem of river pollution in India now seems inevitable; the level of pollution in the greatest rivers of a great nation is alarming.
According to a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report published in 2018 on polluted river stretches, there are 351 polluted river stretches, of which 45 are of Priority I, meaning severely polluted. As per the report, 31 states and UTs are not meeting the water quality criteria.
Most of the stretches are in Maharashtra (53), followed by Assam (44), Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat. River-water pollution is measured by the level of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) in the water. The higher the BOD, the greater the level of pollution.
Another CPCB report published in 2015 pointed out the fact that Indian cities generate around 62,000 million litres of sewage every day. But the sewage treatment capacity of these cities is just 40% of it. As a result, around 40,000 million litres of sewage ends up going into major water bodies or rivers.
In 2014, when the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government came to power at the Centre, the cleaning of the sacred Ganga river was declared as the most prioritised assignment. An umbrella programme, Namami Gange, was launched in 2015 and a budget of Rs 20,000 crore was allotted to begin the cleaning of the river and its tributaries. However, the results of this effort remain awaited.
As far as the impact of this alarming pollution is concerned, it will not be exaggerated if we call it a water emergency.
India ranks 120th among the 122 countries in the Water Quality Index, as per NITI Aayog. The 2018 report by the public body said that currently, 600 million people face high to extreme water shortage, with around two lakh people dying every year due to inadequate access to potable water.
The increasing water shortage will also affect the GDP of the nation, with the country suffering a loss of up to 6% of the GDP in 2030.