Water Pollution

Holy rivers' has rather become a myth today. According to a report of the National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) all the fourteen big rivers of India are badly polluted. They cover 85 per cent of the surface flow of water in the country.

The main pollutant of river water is industrial waste. River Jamuna in Delhi receives 6000 kg of dissolved solids, 3000 kg of heavy metals and 200 kg of detergent every day. In its 48 km stretch around Delhi Yamuna gets polluted through 17 drains that bring toxics, acids and a number of chemicals that affect the health of the river and consequently of all those who depend on it for drinking and bathing water.

The Ganga starts getting polluted by chemicals from Rishikesh itself. It receives effluents from the Indian Drug and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (IDPL) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (BHEL). The flow of toxic effluents including chemicals, metallurgic deposits and fertilizers to river Periyar in Kerala is so great that the people living on its banks have a high incidence of skin diseases.

Cauvery and Kapila in Karnataka are so polluted that in a stretch of 10 km of the banks of Cauvery people suffer badly from skin diseases, boils and burning sensation. Cauvery receives industrial wastes from Tamil Nadu. The story of Godavari is no different. It receives 4,500 gallons of toxic waste everyday from Andhra Paper Mills alone. Plankton on which fish live has been dying in large numbers in the river. Similarly Hooghly and Damodar, receive untreated waste from coal washeries, pulp and paper mills, steel mills and chemical industries in Bengal.

Hooghly receives industrial wastes of 150 big factories including jute mills, textile mills, paper and pulp factories, distilleries and tanneries. Even the fish have been greatly contaminated causing bone diseases and arthritis among those who eat fish in the area. The waste of fertilizer plant and Indian Oil Corporation flowing into Mahi Sagar in Gujarat has killed...