Bengaluru: On January 25, at the height of campaigning for the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath invited Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) Arvind Kejriwal for a dip in the Ganga at Sangam in his state’s Prayagraj, as he harried Kejriwal about how the AAP had not been able to clean up the river Yamuna that flows through Delhi yet. “It [a dip in the Sangam] would do them [AAP Delhi cabinet] some good,” he had said.
Less than a month later, it appears that Adityanath may have to take back his words. A report submitted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on February 3 shows that the water in the river Ganga at Prayagraj – where the Maha Kumbh, a religious gathering of more than 45 crore people as per a government estimate, is ongoing – has fecal coliform levels that are nearly twenty times higher in magnitude than they should be. Essentially, this means that the water in the Ganga here is so contaminated with fecal matter that it is not even fit to take a dip in.
Adityanath, however, has denied these claims. On Wednesday (February 19), speaking in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, he said that the water at Prayagraj was clean and fit enough to bathe in, and take ritual sips of (aachman).
That the spike in fecal coliform has happened despite the “special measures” that authorities have taken in preparation for the Maha Kumbh shows the lack of political will to clean up the river over the long term, said Himanshu Thakkar, water expert and coordinator of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP).
“The cleaning up of the Ganga should happen across the year and not just during the Kumbhs; and the information of water quality should be listed at the sites of the Kumbh because people have the right to know what they are getting into,” he added.
Extremely high coliform and fecal coliform levels
Part of the report that the CPCB submitted to the NGT on February 3 lists several water quality parameters including Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), total coliform and fecal coliform levels – all measure of pollution levels in the river water – at Prayagraj during the Maha Kumbh 2025. Kumbh melas occur once every four to 12 years. It began on January 13 this year and will last till February 26.
The CPCB report, excerpts of which have been included in the NGT hearing, has provided data for some of the above-mentioned water quality parameters from January 12 to 15, and January 19, 20 and 24.
“River water quality was not conforming with the primary water quality for bathing w.r.t. Fecal Coliform (FC) at all the monitored locations on various occasions. Huge number of people taking bath at Prayagraj during Maha Kumbh Mela in river including auspicious bathing days which eventually leads to increase in fecal concentration,” the CPCB report mentioned.
For instance, at Sangam ghat in Prayagraj, total and fecal coliform levels increased from 4,500 and 2,000 MPN/100 ml (Most Probable Number per every 100 ml) on January 12 to 49,000 and 11,000 MPN/100 ml on January 14. This again rose to a total coliform level of 7,00,000 MPN/ 100 ml and fecal coliform level of 49,000 MPN/100 ml on January 19.
In rivers, fecal coliform levels – a measure of the amount of fecal contamination in water, usually caused by the influx of untreated sewage – should ideally be less than 2,500 MPN for every 100 ml of water.
According to the CPCB report, all ten sewage treatment plants in Prayagraj are operational, but one of them is not meeting the prescribed operational standards.
Noting the high levels of fecal coliform, the NGT mentioned during the hearing on pollution in Ganga river that the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) had not filed a “comprehensive action taken report,” detailing the steps that the NGT in December last year had asked the board to take up before the Maha Kumbh kicks off.
On February 17, the NGT ordered the member secretary and other state authorities to be present to discuss this non-compliance on February 19. At the meeting, the NGT pulled up the board and the Uttar Pradesh government for not submitting adequate details on faecal coliform and other water quality parameters, such as oxygen levels, in the river Ganga in Prayagraj. The NGT has now given the authorities one week to place these details on record, LiveMint reported.
‘Shows lack of political will’
Water expert Thakkar told The Wire that there were several concerns here.
Firstly, this huge increase in fecal coliform levels has occurred despite the “special measures” – such as diverting sewage from the areas where the Kumbh is happening, closing all tanneries nearby, ensuring that all STPs are operational and releasing more water upstream – that authorities take in preparation for the Kumbh melas, he said.
“Secondly, the government is not only making all arrangements for the Kumbh, it is also inviting people for the Kumbh,” Thakkar added. “So the government has to ensure that the water in the Ganga at that time should not only be of bathing quality, but also possibly drinking quality too – because they know that people take aachman [a ritual where pilgrims drink the water after bathing in it]. But they’ve completely failed.”
Thirdly, Thakkar underlined that there is data on water quality only for a “limited number of days in the CPCB report”. “While the rest of the data is still to come, all data should have been on the public domain promptly.”
Noting the seriousness of the matter, he suggested that boards must be put at the Kumbh everywhere and specify that “this [water] is not bathing quality water, let alone aachman quality.”
“This should have been publicised there in public interest so that people know what they are getting into,” Thakkar mentioned.
“One of the excuses that the CPCB has put forward is saying that when so many crores of people take bath, then BOD and fecal coliform is likely to go up. That’s nonsense,” he added. “You’re supposed to make arrangements..ensure that only so many people come wherein the Ganga can still continue to have water quality that does not deteriorate despite that. If you don’t do that then you have not done your duty, and nor are you informing people on time.”
According to Thakkar, there should be a cap on the number of people bathing in the water so that the water quality in the river does not deteriorate below set standards.
But is such a carrying capacity feasible, especially when a religious event is in question? Thakkar definitely thinks it is, he cited the example of the carrying capacity imposed by the Uttarakhand government after 2013 when several pilgrims died on the Char Dham Yatra, another religious event.
In the case of Ganga, temporary measures such as those being undertaken for the Kumbh alone, or “cosmetic changes,” will not work, Thakkar said. “The cleaning up of the Ganga should happen across the year and not just during the Kumbhs… treat the Ganga like a river all around the year. It is very much implementable if there is political will to do so.”
Indeed, the concern of sewage water entering the river across all times is something that citizens have also documented. V.N. Mishra, president of the Sankat Mochan Foundation – an NGO whose vision is to ensure a clean Ganga – had tweeted on March 6, 2024, that in most of its segments, the river is “not even fit for bathing”. In a recent post in December last year – at the time that the Ganga was to have been specifically cleaned up for the Maha Kumbh – he documented sewage being released into the river.
आख़िर #Ganga जी में ये गिरते नाले कब बंद होंगे।@cleanganganmcg लाल घाट pic.twitter.com/ddqAAMDJgz
— Vishwambhar N Mishra Varanasi (@MahantMochan) December 27, 2024
This latest news of the fecal coliform contamination of the river Ganga comes even as the government is consistently spending money on cleaning up the river. As of June 2024, around Rs 18,000 crore (out of almost Rs 38,000 crore of sanctioned funds) has been spent on various programmes under the Namami Gange project as part of the National Mission for Clean Ganga, The Hindu reported in August last year. The director general of the mission had himself remarked that the pace was slow. And yet, despite the government spending crores of taxpayers’ money on the Ganga, the river is still not clean – not even to take a dip in – even though the Uttar Pradesh chief minister denies it.