Streams of Filth ; Money Is Flowing Like Water Into Prominent Government Projects On River Conservation, but There Is Little Effect On the Nation's Lifelines.

Summary

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In a fantasy India, a cinematic, fictitious one, the River always flows with serene timelessness. Wherever it goes-icy crags, dusty, thirsty plains or through heavy, damp air-the River contains spiritual depth and emotional weight. All this is lovely to dream, and ideal for tourist brochures where India is called incredible. But to believe that the River in India is both holy and pure is to believe that fiction is fact.

In just over a decade, India's major rivers have been desecrated. Urban filth and industrial pollution are scientific causes, but what drives them is personal greed and administrative indifference. Environmentalists believe that apart from industrial pollution and sewage, the increase in number of slaughterhouse, dhobi ghats, crematoria and slums are the major sources of pollution in these rivers. Every year, religious idols are immersed in rivers which lose a little more of their life as they are choked yet again. Recently the Supreme Court rejected a PIL filed by a Delhi resident Salek Chand Jain seeking a ban on immersion of idols in rivers and said, "The court can't ask so many states to impose a ban. You may approach appropriate authorities to have your grievance redressed." In major towns, as riverbeds run dry with an expanding sheet of silt, the construction business steps in to offer roughly built brick structures that can be ashrams as well as apartment blocks.

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Streams of Filth ; Money Is Flowing Like Water Into Prominent Government Projects On River Conservation, but There Is Little Effect On the Nation's Lifelines.

Take Delhi for example. As the host for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, an athletes' village was built on the Yamuna riverbed by arm- twisting the law and court rulings. This, when Delhi's sewage mechanism is teetering on the verge of collapse. The total sewage generated is 3,470 million litres per day (MLD) in a city that has a treatment capacity of around 2,325 MLD. What reall...

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