Of 445 rivers, 275 have polluted stretches: Minister

IANS 09 August 2017

Out of 445 rivers monitored by the Centre, 275 have polluted stretches with Maharashtra topping the chart with the maximum number, Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Tuesday.

It said that the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) made an assessment in 2015 and identified 302 polluted river stretches on 275 rivers.

"CPCB monitors water quality of 445 rivers across the country and has made long term assessment of water quality of rivers with respect to Biochemical oxygen demand the indicator of organic pollution," Harsh Vardhan told the Lok Sabha in a written answer.

The polluted stretches include 49 in Maharashtra, 28 in Assam, 21 in Madhya Pradesh, 20 in Gujarat, 17 in West Bengal, 15 in Karnataka, 13 each in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, 12 each in Manipur and Odisha, 10 in Meghalaya, nine in Jammu and Kashmir, eight each in Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan, seven each in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, six in Andhra Pradesh, five in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Sikkim and Uttarakhand, three in Nagaland and two each in Haryana, Punjab and Tripura.

Delhi and Daman and Diu each have one polluted stretch of river.

The Minister also stated that pollution abatement of rivers is a continuous and ongoing process.

He stated that his Ministry has been supplementing the efforts of the state governments in abatement of pollution in identified stretches of various rivers under National River Conservation Plan (NRCP), which has covered polluted stretches of 31 rivers (excluding Ganga and its tributaries) in 75 towns spread over 14 States, including Kerala

at a sanctioned cost of Rs 4,517.82 crore.

"So far, Central share of Rs 2,066.98 crore has been released to the state governments for implementation of various pollution abatement schemes and sewage treatment capacity of 2,455.43 million litres per day has been created under the NRCP," the Minister stated.

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Comments

User

Shirish Sadanand Shanbhag

8 years ago

We say, money has gone into water, if money is wasted, without any use.
If preventive measures for pollution of water front, be it river, sea or lake is not used, then whatever the measures that are used to clean rivers, is a sheer waste of money.

There are several states in India, where waste disposal of the town or industries is not properly planned. Liquid waste where it release? How much percentage of waste frfom the liquid waste are to be removed by a special process of the waste before it is released in to water front? All these questions are not discussed by those, who want to go for waste water treatment of river directly.
Such people, before cleaning of any river, should study well the types of waste water being released by the industries, by the Local Self Government bodies in concerned river, a remedial measures for such release of waste should be taken, which will clean the rivers better, because, prevention is better than cure.