GAP has improved Ganga water: Harvard Institute

New Delhi, July 10 (UNI) The quality of the Ganga water, sullied by decades of polluting activities, has shown improvement after the ambitious Action Plan to clean the river was taken up.

In terms of the time and costs taken, the much criticised Ganga Action Plan(GAP) compares favourably with those of the other major rivers of the world like Thames, Rhine and Danube.

Despite a phenomenal increase in population in the urban centers located upstream on the river Ganga, there is a clear improvement in terms of Biochemical Oxygen Demand(BOD)of the river during 1986-2005 at Kannauj, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi&Patna.

Bathing water quality criteria is Dissolved Oxygen(DO) equal to or more than 5.0 mg per litre of water(mg/l) and BOD equal to or less than 3.0 mg/L per.

This has been possible because of the completion of works under Ganga Action Plan(GAP) Phase 1, says the Environment Ministry.

According to it, it would be unreasonable for a developing country like India to expect to achieve in 10-15 years what it has taken countries with many more resources over 30 years to achieve particularly for much smaller rivers than Ganga.

For example, the length of the Thames is just 245 km and of Rhine 1320 km as compared to 2857 km of the Ganga.

The Ganga serves a population of 500 million as against 50 million of Rhine and 86 million of Danube.

Cleaning the Thames and Rhihe took 30 and 50 years respectively while it is just 13 years since the Ganga Action Plan was launched.

Restoration cost for the 245 km Thames were Rs 5.0 billion, for 1320 km long Rhine Rs 1940.0 billion and Rs 125 billion for 1320 km long Danube, whereas only Rs 11 billion dollars have so far been spent on the Ganga.

On the direction of the Planning Commission of India, a Cost Benefit Analysis of GAP Phase-I was carried out by Harvard Institute of International Development in 1995-97, in collaboration with reputed national institutes.

The broad conclusion of the study is that in spite of its many shortcomings, the GAP I has delivered significant benefits to India.

The water quality model of the river Ganga was used to estimate the Ganga river quality during 1995 and beyond, both with and without the Ganga Action Plan Phase I.

The model showed that in 1995, a total stretch of river of about 437 km between Rishikesh, UP and Rajmahal, Bihar still has biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) levels above the permissible limit of 3.0 mg/l.

The problem stretch mainly lies between Kannauj and Varanasi.

However, without GAP this stretch would have been about 740 km and more than 100 km would have exceeded 10 mg/l of BOD.

Dissolved Oxygen (DO) levels would have been below 5.0 mg/l for a short stretch near Kanpur. Hence, it can be seen that GAP I has made a significant difference to water quality.

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