Hyderabad/New Delhi: A holy dip in river Ganga might cause cancer. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that cleaning Ganga was on top of his priority list but more is required to be done than expected.
Times of India reported that the Department of Atomic Energy's National Centre for Compositional Characterisation of Materials (NCCM) in Hyderabad had tested water samples from the river and it was revealed that the river water contained carcinogens.
NCCM functions under the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. The centre had collected water samples from the Ganga during Kumbha Mela in January 2013 and found that water collected by the disciples contained Chromium 6.
"Chromium is essential as well as toxic. The toxic form of chromium is hexavalent chromium. We have determined its content in the Ganga water collected during Kumbha Mela. It was 1 ng/ml, almost 50 times the permissible limit," NCCM head Dr Sunil Jai Kumar told the English daily.
Exposure to such high levels of chromium can be hazardous to health and can also cause cancer.
Ganges, the 2,500 km river stretching from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, is full of industrial effluent and untreated sewage, its banks strewn with garbage.
Previous attempts to clean up the river, including introducing flesh-eating turtles to devour the charred remains of the dead cremated on its banks, have failed due to a lack of planning or coordination.
The filth is said to have come from the Kanpur tanneries. Sunil Jai Kumar added, “We have to develop technologies that can cleanse the Ganga of chemical impurities. It can be done.”
Prime Minister Modi has taken personal responsibility for restoring Maa Ganga, as part of a broader push to husband India's scarce water resources and improve standards of public health and hygiene.
Watch: Narendra Modi's 'Mission Ganga'
Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power on his campaign promises to boost economic development in the world's largest democracy. The 63-year-old leader has also stressed Hindu values that he believes have been undermined by modern secularism.
The government will seek the advice of ascetics on how best to carry out an ambitious plan by Modi to clean up the Ganges.
The Government is in the process of preparing a compact plan to rejuvenate river Ganga and the same parameters will be implemented to clean-up other rivers in the country, said Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti on Tuesday.
"River Ganga is a leader of other rivers like Narendra Modi is the leader of the nation. We will be implementing the parameters adopted to rejuvenate Ganga for other rivers, as well. What was lacking was a compact planning, which the Prime Minister has said it will be done. We are in the process of preparing a compact plan. The secretaries are also working in this regard," she told reporters.
Bharti was speaking on the sidelines of a national conference on preserving rivers.
Asked about her perception about the new Government on the eve of completing 30 days, she said that the Prime Minister, his council of ministers and all ministries were working in perfect coordination.
She also exude confidence that people would give an overwhelming mandate in favour of BJP in 2019 also.
"We have got the mandate in 2014. Similarly, we will also get better mandate in 2019," she noted.
Earlier, addressing the gathering on the occasion, Bharti said, a meeting of technocrats, saints, environmentalists and NGOs has been called on July 5 for consultations on Ganga
Rejuvenation Programme. She further said that there was no paucity of funds for
Ganga Rejuvenation Programme, while adding that the private sector has also offered help in this task and collaborations from other countries will also be considered.
The Water Resource Minister also clarified that her ministry was not opposed to power projects on rivers, but at the same time it has to be ensured that main river is never dry during any point of the year.
Watch: How is river Ganga getting polluted?
