Rivers cleanliness initiatives in India.

Despite being aware of the fact that rivers have served as the cradle of civilisation in most parts of the world, today this globe is witnessing river degradation from various parts of the globe. India is no exception to it. 

Major polluted rivers of the world.

1. Citarum River, Indonesia. Citarum river flows through the Indonesian province of West Java. It plays an important role in serving people great way by supplying water for irrigation and agriculture, industry, fishery and also in the electricity production. There are three hydroelectric power plant dams installed in this river. Despite of being generous, it is filled with tons of harmful substances from the industrial and domestic wastes. 
2. Ganges River, India. Ganges or Ganga, is considered to be the holiest river in Hinduism. It originates from the gangotri glacier in the western Himalayas, flows south and east through the Gangetic plain of north India entering Bangladesh and merges into the Bay of Bengal. It acts as a trans-boundary river of India and Bangladesh. It is the second largest river in the Indian subcontinent and also was ranked as one of the five most polluted rivers in the world. Due to religious practices, this river has numerous pollutants ranging from household garbage in abundance to industrial wastes and toxic. 
3. Mantanza-Riachuelo River, Argentina. Originating in the capital city of Argentina, Buenos Aires, and empties into the Rio de la Plata, this river is known as the “slaughter creek” in English. It is 64 km long and defines the southern boundary of Buenos Aires federal district. This is a foul smelling river filled with toxic substances released from the household and industrial wastes. Millions of chemical wastes are being discharged in the water by petroleum companies resulting into water pollution. 
4. Buriganga River, Bangladesh. This river is one of the most important rivers of Bangladesh and was also one of the main drinking sources along with trade and transportation since the 17th century. Ever since the 20th century, the river turned polluted. Hazardous pollutants like polythene, industrial and household sewage, plastics and even dead man and animals spoiled the river water in a grand scale. 
5. Yamuna River, India. Yamuna, the largest tributary river of the Ganges, originates from the yamunotri glacier in the Lower Himalayas. It passes through several states of north India before merging with the Ganges at the Triveni Sangam. The river meets the need of nearly 57 million people and accounts for 70% of Delhi’s water supplies. But this river is now affected deeply by pollution as millions of household garbage, municipal disposals and soil erosion due to deforestation find their way into the river each day. Even the toxic chemical substances including insecticides, fertilizers, pesticides, etc., are also found, making it the second most polluted river in India after Ganges.
6. Jordan River, Israel. Jordan river originates in west Asia that flows to the Dead sea. The river is bordered by the State of Israel and West Bank to the west with Jordan lying to its east. This river has religious significance, it being the place where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. In the year 1964, the Israelis had built a dam on this river to divert its water to National Water Carriers. But the environmentalists say that these dam constructions have largely disturbed the ecosystem. Human consumption of the water is almost 70%-90% resulting in the reduction of flow. The water is now contaminated by huge amount of sewage and wastes. 
7. Yellow River, China. The yellow river which is also called the Huang He, is the second longest river in Asia and the sixth longest river in the world. It finds its origin in the Bayan Har mountains in Qinghai province of western China an empties into the Bohai sea near the city of Dongying in Shadong province. It’s called “yellow” because of the muddy water arising from loess in the lower course of the river making it yellow. Popularly considered as “the cradle of Chinese civilization”, this river was the main source of drinking water and irrigation. Of late, this river has been suffering from pollution that has made it impossible for people to drink. According to the report by UN Environmental Programme, 4.29 billion tons of industrial wastes and sewages was dumped in 1996, making one third of it unusable.
8. Marilao River, Philippines. Marilao river starts from the uplands of Rizal and flows through the Metro of Manila, in the Philippines. This river water is the most polluted, arousing a great concern not only to the government of Philippines but also the whole world. The non-profit environmental facility, known as the Blacksmith Institute, tagged this river as one of the world’s 30 dirtiest river in 2008, confirming the level of contamination as “high level”.
9. Sarno River, Italy. “Sarnus”, as was known to the Romans, this river originates at Mt. Sarno and passes through Pompeii to the south of the Italian city, Naples. The reason that this water body is regarded as the most polluted river in the whole of Europe is because of the dumping of all the industrial and agricultural wastes.
10. Mississippi River, U.S.A. The term Mississippi refers to “big river” or “great river”. It is the main river of the largest drainage system in the entire North America and also acts as the greatest natural and economic resource for the US. This river flows all the way down in the US and rises in the northern Minnesota, meandering slowly. Mississippi river valley is one of the most fertile agricultural region. But since the modern development took its girth in the basin, this cardinal river has started getting polluted with all agricultural sewage making the surrounding areas of the river mouth as a “dead zone”. A recent report by a campaign group in 2012 claimed that in the year 2010, about 12.7 million pounds of toxic materials were disposed in the river including poisonous chemicals such as nitrates, benzene and arsenic.

Initiatives taken in India.

As we have seen above, two of India's major rivers have found place in the list of the 10 most polluted rivers of India. 

Ganges: 

The Ganges River Pollution is now at such a high level that the amount of toxins, chemicals and other dangerous bacteria found in the river are now almost 3000 times over the limit suggested by the WHO as 'safe'. The major causes are:

1. Dumping of raw, untreated sewage on a daily basis. The amount has more than doubled in the last 20 years and experts predict another 100% increase in the following 20 years.
2. The rapid explosion of India's population in the last 25 years coupled with lax regulations on industry has put a huge strain on the river leading to an explosion in Ganges river pollution. 
3. Thousands of bodies are cremated on the banks of the river yearly with many being released into the river with hopes that their souls may have a direct path to heaven. 

To tackle these problems, National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) was established by the Central Government of India, on 20 February 2009 under Section 3(3) of the Environment Protection Act, 1986. NGRBA declared Ganges as the "National River" of India. It is a financing, planning, implementing, monitoring and coordinating authority for the Ganges River, functioning under the Ministry of Environment of India. The mission of the organization is to safeguard the drainage basin which feeds water into the Ganges by protecting it from pollution or overuse.

Yamuna:

River Yamuna, with a total length of around 1370 km is the largest tributary of the Ganges. Its source is at Yamunotri in the Uttarakhand Himalaya regions. It flows through the state of Uttaranchal, Haryana, Delhi an Uttar Pradesh before merging with the Ganges in Allahabad. It used to be a clear blue river but since the past few decades it has turned into one of the most polluted river in the world, especially Delhi, which dumps about 57% of its waste into the river. Even the Supreme Court justice, B.S chauhan, sitting in a bench had observed that it is no more a, “Maili Yamuna but a Ganda Naalah”.

Increasing pollution of the Yamuna has now become an international issue and a cause of concern for environmentalists. Big industries, Factories, Peoples living in colonies, slums and rural areas everyone pollute this holy river. In addition, the water in this river remains stagnant for almost nine months in a year, aggravating the situation. Agricultural residues, insecticides and pesticides also contribute to the pollution of the river. Also People wash their clothes, utensils and defecate in the river and pollute it. 

There are several authorities which are involved in taking care of pollution in Yamuna. These include:

• Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) 
• Delhi Pollution Control Committee ( DPCC) 
• State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) 
• Delhi Jal Board (DJB) 
• Civil society groups 
• Educomp and Kent RO 
• Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) 

Till date, More than 2158 crores have been spent by the government of India, and the governments of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh combined. A few years back when the pollution level of Yamuna increased alarmingly, the Delhi government woke up and launched a number of projects to clean up Yamuna. 

• In 2009 Year Delhi Govt. entered into agreement with Engineers India Limited to clean Yamuna. 
• Delhi Jal Board (DJB) proposed laying down sewers along the three major drains - Najafgarh, Supplementary and Shahadra drains. 
• 17 STPs (Sewage treatment plant) and 10 CEPTs (common effluent treatment plant) were built. Also 30 Kms of trunk sewers were repaired (out of 130Km) and many slums were removed from riverfront and low cost toilets were built. 
• On May19, 2010 the cabinet committee on infrastructure (CCI) approved the project for laying interceptors sewers along the three major drains in Delhi for abatement of pollution in the Yamuna river. 

The Government of India has been implementing Yamuna action plan (YAP) With assistance from Japan international cooperation agency, Government of Japan in a phased manner since 1993. 

• Yamuna Action Plan (YAP -1): YAP-I, which commenced in April, 1993 was completed in February 2003 at a total cost of Rs. 682 crores covering various pollution abatement works, including creation of Sewage Treatment capacity of 753.25 million litres per day (MLD). 
• Yamuna Action Plan (YAP -II): YAP-II was approved in 2003 at an estimated cost of Rs. 624 crores with a completion period of 5 years. The major items of work in YAP -II such as rehabilitation of sewerage network and Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) and construction of new STPs. 
• Yamuna Action Plan (YAP- III): the YAP III project for Delhi within estimated cost of RS 1656 CRORES HAS BEEN APPROVED IN 2011. 

STPs built under YAP-1, was designed for the 1997 population load, which became insufficient by 2002 because of a tremendous increase in population. 

• Delhi's population has grown at a phenomenal rate of 47percent per decade (as against the national average of 21 percent), but planning and provisioning of infrastructure has not kept pace with the increase in population, resulting in rural villages, shanties and colonies without adequate sewerage infrastructure. 
• Mainly the money provided for the plan was spent on paying wages to the employee’s salary instead of cleaning the river.
• There has not been much public awareness during YAP I & II by the authorities which resulted in rising pollution.

Judicial Stand.

In the year 2012, The Supreme Court sought an explanation from the Central, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana governments on the Yamuna continuing to be highly polluted despite a spending of around Rs. 4,400 crore over the last 18 years on cleaning the river.

In 2013,the National Green Tribunal (NGT) invoked the “Polluter Pays” principle to deal with the problem of pollution and dumping of debris on the Yamuna bank.