For many years, Ganga cleaning has been an important political topic. Leaders from every party have pledged to clean up the river.
Thousands of people came for a two-day “Sadbhavna Sammelan” on the left bank of “Har Ki Paudi” in Haridwar, which was arranged by Uttarakhand tourism minister Satpal Maharaj. The theme of the April 13–14 event was spirituality and the Ganga’s significance to Hindus. On the other hand, a large number of participants were observed taking a dip in the polluted river on Saturday night, which contained rubbish, flowers, and plastic.
Standing on the banks, Satinder Singh of Hoshiarpur, Punjab, said, “You see, the Ganga is so dirty.” Taking off plastic packets from the water, he demonstrated the pollution in the river. Singh, who frequently travels to Haridwar, stated that he has not observed an obvious rise in the quality of the Ganga’s water in the previous few years.
In Uttarakhand, where the Ganga river rises at the Gangotri glacier in the Gaumukh region of Uttarkashi district, pollution in the river is not a major voting concern, in contrast to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019. 2014 saw Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi pledge to clean up one of the dirtiest rivers in the world in Uttarakhand. At a cost of more than ₹30,000 crore, the central government introduced the Namami Gange initiative in 2015 with the goal of cleaning the river by 2020.
Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Vishweshwar Tudu, briefed Parliament on the status of the Namami Gange scheme, which aims to clean and revitalize the river, on February 13, 2024. He stated that the Ganga’s “pollution load” had been significantly decreased by the plan. With a ₹32,912.4 crore budget, the Center has begun 409 initiatives since 2014 to clean up the river. The ministry noted that polluted sections of the river are being restored through authorized action plans in order to satisfy the environment ministry’s standards for outdoor swimming.
Swami Shivanand said, “The river is as polluted as it was before the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party ) came to power.” Swami Shivanand Saraswati, who leads Matre Sadan, an ashram situated along the Ganga’s banks in Haridwar, has been advocating for a clean Ganga since 1986.
According to Haridwar-based writer Sunil Sharma, the BJP has made cleaning the Ganga a campaign platform. “The BJP had promised ‘nirmal and aviral dhara’Ganga. Both has not happened,” he said. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) administration established an expert group on the Ganga in 2010, and the committee proposed a 50% ecological flow of river water for the purpose of natural cleansing and aquatic life support.
Trivendra Singh Rawat, a BJP candidate and former chief minister of Uttarakhand, asserted on Saturday in Haridwar that drinking water from the Ganga river was safe. “We had committed that one would be able to drink water directly from Ganga. We have fulfilled that promise,” he stated in Haridwar during his election campaign.
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