Reviving Ganga : Problems and Prospects

Abstract

The focus given to environmental issues across India has been discouraging. If observed properly, nothing represents the environmental problem better than the Ganga river. A river whose role changes across the geographic terrains, catering to the needs of more than quarter of our population has been exploited by the same people who take a dip in holy water to have a “sin free life”. The current NDA government whose pitch to revive Ganga rode them to power in the most populated state of our country has duped its electorate, meanwhile capitalising the reverence given to the river. Reviving Ganga has been a typical example of wicked problem posed by any public policy issue. Involving multiple stakeholder’s interest and a mammoth budget, reviving Ganga is a distant dream even after 35 years of its conception. Billions spent on these efforts, but it took a lockdown as a result of Covid-19 pandemic to actually revive the river. Instances like these compels us to think what actually went wrong where the civilizational identity, the physical manifestation of goddess, the mighty river Ganga was dying a slow death and we as a society kept watching it, preparing a man-made disaster and waiting for the same. The document tries to understand and explain the reason behind the systematic degradation of the river and failure on our part to revive the same.