THE GANGES

By AnirudhaRai

It drains into the Bay of Bengal through its vast delta in the

Sunderbans.

The Ganga is a major Indian river flowing through the plains of

Northern India into Bangladesh.

The 2510km[1557m] long river begins at the Gangotri Glacier

in the central Himalayas.

COURSE

The Ganga originates in the Himalayas after the

confluence of six rivers.

The streams are fed by the melting snow and ice

from the glaciers.It emerges from the Himalayas at the pilgrimage town

of Haridwar.

The Ganges which till this point flows in a South-Western

direction now begins to flow in a South-Eastern direction.It is joined by the River Yamuna at a point called Sangamam,

a scared place in Hinduism.

It flows through the plains and enters Bangladesh.

It fans out into the 350km wide Ganges Delta.

It empties into the Bay of Bengal.

The Story Of The Descent Of Ganga

King Bagiratha through his penance was responsible for the descent of Ganga from Heaven to Earth

As the might of the river was too much for Earth to withstand, he prayed to Lord Shiva who caught the river in his matted hair.

HISTORY

Megasthanese was the first Westerner to mention Ganges in his work Indika.

Jawarharlal Nehru in his book ‘ Discovery of India’ says

The story of the Ganges from her source to the sea

is the story of India’s civilization and culture, of the

rise and fall of empires ,of great and proud cities,

of adventures of man…..

In Rome’s Piazza Navona, there is a fountain of four Rivers–

The Ganges, The Nile, The Daunbe and The Rio De La Plata.

This is the architectural creation of Bermin in 1651.

RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

The Ganga is mentioned in the Rig-Veda, the earliest Hindu scriptures.

Ancient scriptures mention that The Ganges

carries the blessings of Lord Vishnu’s feet

and hence the name ‘Vishnupadi’ meaning

‘Emanating from the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord Vishnu’.

The Ganga is worshipped by the Hindus

and personified as a Goddess.

The reverence accorded to rivers is a gesture of acknowledgement of their life sustaining abilities.

The Indian system of beliefs is based on an intimate relationship with Nature.

Hindu belief holds that

bathing in the River

causes

forgiveness of sins and

helps attain salvation.

The immersion of ashes of people is believed to send the soul to Heaven.

Drinking the water of The Ganges is believed to purify the soul.

ECONOMY

The Ganges basin with its fertile soil is instrumental to the agricultural economy of India.

The Ganges with its tributaries provides a perennial source of irrigation for crops.

The two main dams at Haridwar and

Farakka are a source of power generation.

The three towns holy to Hinduism – Haridwar,

Varanasi and Allahabad attract thousands of

pilgrims to its waters.

The rapids of the Ganges are popular river rafting area, attracting hundreds of adventure seekers in the summer months.

ECOLOGYThe Ganges collects

large amounts of human pollutants as it flows through highly populous areas, carrying high health risk of infection.

The Ganga Action Plan has been set up under the Indian government and is attempting to build waste treatment facilities.

Today, over 29 cities, 70 towns, and thousands of villages extend along the Ganga banks. Nearly all of their sewage - over 1.3 billion liters per day - goes directly into the river, along with thousands of animal carcasses, mainly cattle. Another 260 million liters of industrial waste are added to this by hundreds of factories along the rivers banks. Municipal sewage constitutes 80 per cent by volume of the total waste dumped into the Ganga, and industries contribute about 15 percent. The majority of the Ganga pollution is organic waste, sewage, trash, food, and human and animal remains. Over the past century, city populations along the Ganga have grown at a tremendous rate, while waste-control infrastructure has remained relatively unchanged. Recent water samples collected in Varanasi revealed fecal-coliform counts of about 50,000 bacteria per 100 milliliters of water, 10,000% higher than the government standard for safe river bathing. The result of this pollution is an array of water-borne diseases including cholera, hepatitis, typhoid and amoebic dysentery. An estimated 80% of all health problems and one-third of deaths in India are attributable to water-borne diseases.The sacred practice of depositing human remains in the Ganga also poses health threats because of the unsustainable rate at which partially cremated cadavers are dumped. Hundreds of corpses burn on the line of wooden pyres. Soot-covered men bustle about, raking in the still-glowing ashes, sweeping them into the river. Ganga is getting polluted day-by-day. Nearly 170 factories and tanneries located between Kannauj and Varanasi, covering an area of 450 km, were found responsible for polluting the river by discharging wastes into it without treatment,” Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh told reporters on August 28, 2010. There is an urgent need to aware people and get started to stop its pollution and degradation.

After two Ganga Action Plans failed to deliver the goods, seven major IITs of the country have joined hands to find ways to clean up the national river. The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) was initiated by the late Prime Minster Indira Gandhi, who called for a comprehensive survey of the situation in 1979. In 1985, the government of India launched the Ganga Action Plan, which was devised to clean up the river in selected areas by installing sewage treatment plants and threatening fines and litigation against industries that pollute.    The 2006 official audit of the Ganga Action Plan has revealed that it has met only 39 per cent of its sewage treatment target. The 2006 official audit of the Ganga Action Plan has revealed that it has met only 39 per cent of its sewage treatment target. Moreover, the plan is behind schedule by over 13 years. According to the legal counsel, Central Pollution Control Board, Mr Vijay Panjawani, even after spending Rs 24,000 crore, the Ganga remains as dirty as everA total of 146 industries are reported to be located along the river Ganga between Rishikesh and Prayagraj. 144 of these are in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and 2 in Uttrakhand. Of the grossly polluting industries in U.P., 82 industries have installed Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) and are reported to be complying with the standards, 27 industries, though have installed ETPs are not reported to be complying with the prescribed standards and 35 industries are reported to have been closed.

BIBLIOGRAPHYwww.google.comhttp://searches.omiga-plus.com/search/web?qsi=11&q=ganges%20ppt&p=2&fcoid=4&fcop=bottomnav&fpid=2