New Delhi
16 September 2005
A holy dip would actually be so, and not mean
having to bathe in a river polluted beyond recognition, if 10 Janpath
decides to join hands with 10 Downing Street to "heal the distressed
Ganga". Completing the trinity of nations is the United States, which has
renewed its support to the cause.
Invoking the "unfulfilled dream" of the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi,
who launched the Ganga Action Plan, enviromentalists say the
government in general and the Gandhi family in particular need to take the
initiative if the United Kingdom's offer to share its expertise and to
contribute technology is to bear fruit.
"Let the Gandhi family show interest," was their refrain at a brainstorming
session hosted by the British High Commission. They called for a new
initiative as the Ganga Action Plan, which was launched in 1986, had not
proved effective despite an investment worth several hundreds of crores
of Rupees.
The UK's tryst with Ganga goes back 14 years to 1991, when Britain lent
moral and material support to the Varanasi-based Sankat Mochan
Foundation. The British High Commissioner, Sir Michael Arthur, observed
that environmental protection was "one of eight strategic priorities in the
UK's global foreign policy".
Offering to share his country's expertise in cleaning the Thames river, Sir
Arthur called for forging a a public-private partnership in concert with
people's representatives. "It cannot be done by government alone," he
observed.
The United States ambassador in India, Mr David C Mulford, in turn, has
said that corporates have a social responsibility and successful clean-up
efforts would throw up enormous commercial, recreational and health
benefits for people.
An estimated 160 million litres per day of untreated sewage flows into the
Ganga. The fecal-coliform (animal and human excrement in water) bacteria
count is as high as 67 thousand times the accepted Indian standard for
bathing. Incidentally, India is one of several countries that has taken the
United Nations Millennium pledge to eradicate all sources of river
pollution by 2015.
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