The Ganga Basin: A Critical Resource for India

The

Ganga Basin

A Critical Resource for India

The Ganga Basin T

he Ganga is India’s most important river. Its sprawling basin covers more than 860,000 square kilometres in India alone and is home to around 600 million Indians, or close to half the nation’s population. The basin generates approximately 40 percent of the country’s GDP and is an invaluable environmental and economic resource for India.

The main stem of the Ganga rises from glacial sources in the Himalayas and courses through five major states before draining through the Sundarbans – the largest mangrove system in the world – into the swirling waters of the Bay of Bengal. Along its 2,500 km journey, the river enriches huge swathes of agricultural land and sustains a procession of densely-populated cities and towns along its banks. Fast-flowing tributaries in its upper reaches have the hydropower potential to ease India’s chronic power shortages, and in the plains, the river has the potential to transform into an arterial waterway that spurs economic growth in one of the poorest and most populous regions of the country.

But the Ganga – long an icon of India’s ancient civilisation and critical for its prosperity – is in trouble. Ever-growing populations, unplanned urbanisation and rapid industrialisation generate heavy pollution loads that incessantly sully the river. Overabstraction of its waters in the lean season (primarily for irrigation), competing water demands, and diversions and obstructions on the main stem and tributaries have wreaked havoc on the health of the river and its ability to nourish the millions of people who live and work in the basin.

Today, despite its great potential to be an engine of economic growth, the basin is a microcosm of the complex problems that confront some of India’s most populous areas. Many of those dependent on the river are amongst India’s poorest, with more than 200 million people living below the poverty line. Although the large basin states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal lie in the country’s resource-rich heartland, they face some of the country’s most pressing socio-economic and developmental challenges.

India is now seeking to develop solutions to these challenges in ways that do not compromise the river’s health. The new and explicit mandate to the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation is an important step, as is the adoption of a multi-sectoral approach to rejuvenating the river through the newly formulated Namami Gange Programme. The World Bank, too, is deeply engaged in the Ganga basin across a range of sectors and development initiatives that seek to ensure that the Ganga emerges and remains a healthy, working river.

The basin generates approximately 40 percent of the country’s GDP and is an invaluable environmental and economic resource for India

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Restoring the quality of the Ganga’s waters G

iven the multiplicity of challenges facing the river, the first step would be to address the formidable pollution pressures that burden the river today, carrying attendant threats to its biodiversity and environmental sustainability.

River rejuvenation will have to depend in part on urban renewal in the basin

The 50 major cities and hundreds of smaller towns that line the river’s banks generate some 3 billion litres of sewage every day, only one-third of which is treated before it reaches the river. While domestic sewage accounts for 7080 percent of the wastewater that flows into the Ganga, industrial effluents which are even more toxic, add another 15 percent, with far-reaching impacts on human and aquatic health. And, in the absence of adequate solid waste management in most cities, mounds of uncollected garbage add to the pervasive pollution.

And this is only pollution from single, identifiable sources, or

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point-source pollution. Nonpoint source pollution – such as pesticide contamination in agricultural run-off that flows into the river, or pollution from livestock – is an even more daunting challenge as it is less visible and less traceable.

And yet, building new pollutionmanagement infrastructure alone will not help. Already, many Sewage Treatment Plants or STPs lie inactive because financially constrained urban local bodies are unable to pay for the electricity needed to run them. And sewage networks carry only a fraction of the design load because last-mile connections to individual households have not been made. Past clean-up efforts have shown that the urban local bodies that hold stewardship of these assets should be strengthened with skills and resources to operate and maintain modern infrastructure.

Ensuring the sustainability of investments in pollutionreducing infrastructure will depend as much on adopting innovative models to finance them as on efforts to build the capacities of urban local bodies managing these facilities. If these measures can be combined, the cities of the Ganga basin could emerge as some of India’s “smart cities”.

River rejuvenation will therefore have to depend in part on urban renewal in the basin.

This is an integral part of the conceptual framework under the World Bank-financed National Ganga River Basin Project, which is helping build sewerage networks and sewage treatment plants in several cities along the river, including Hardwar, Rishikesh, Allahabad, Patna, as well as several other smaller towns in Bihar and UP, and in the Greater Kolkata area.

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Maintaining adequate flows in the river T

he Government has clearly defined its goal for a pollutionfree river in terms of both quality and quantity – the concepts of nirmal dhara and aviral dhara that are the articulated twin goals of the Ganga clean-up program.

The need to maintain adequate environmental flows in the river thus becomes critical to the idea of a rejuvenated Ganga. But it is difficult to evaluate how much water is adequate.

There are numerous demands on the waters of the Ganga – from agriculture, to domestic use, from industry to hydropower and navigation. Clearly, these various, and often competing demands will need to be balanced , even while ensuring that there is adequate water for maintaining critical dolphin, turtle and fish habitats, for allowing the flow of river sediments that sustain aquatic life, and for the myriad religious and cultural activities that take place on the river.

Choices and trade-offs will have to be made. At present, 90 percent of the Ganga’s water is used for

irrigation, but the productivity of irrigation is low – around half the global average. While water can certainly be used more efficiently, the focus now needs to be on improving agricultural productivity.

The World Bank-supported Uttar Pradesh Water Sector Restructuring Project is seeking to do precisely that by delivering irrigation water to farmers more efficiently and helping them use it in a more sustainable manner. But what of the recovered water? Should it be used to bring more tracts of land under cultivation, or should other sectors get a larger share? Or should it be left in the river to contribute to river rejuvenation?

All these questions call for an informed debate between stakeholders. At the moment, however, there is limited scientific analysis of water use in the Ganga basin. In the absence of a robust water system analysis of the river it is impossible to make informed decisions about balancing water needs, including the critical environmental needs of the river itself.

The World Bank’s upcoming Hydrology III Project seeks to strengthen the information base around the hydrology of the Ganga basin. The project will help gather better information on water quality by helping set up real-time monitoring stations, and creating platforms that allow for this information to be shared across a range of water-users. The information generated will allow policy-makers to better plan the management of the Ganga’s waters, including for controlling floods, providing irrigation, and managing navigation.

The need to maintain adequate environmental flows in the river thus becomes critical to the idea of a rejuvenated Ganga

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A transformational waterway T

Inland water transport also serves as an energy efficient mode of transportation

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he Government is keen to develop the Ganga as a logistical artery for northern India that connects economic centres in the hinterland to busy ports along the Bay of Bengal. As one of India’s longest rivers, the Ganga can help move cargo from river to land in a seamless continuum, creating hubs of activity along the way that can generate thousands of jobs in logistics, processing and ancillary industries. Indeed, some of the new clusters that emerge along the waterway could be developed as “smart� cities and centres of industrial competitiveness, leading, in due course, to a complete makeover of this resource-rich but economically less developed region.

Inland water transport also serves as an energy-efficient mode of transportation. It is estimated

that 1 litre of fuel can move 24 tonnes of cargo per km by road, 85 tonnes by rail and 105 tonnes on water.

But again, the question arises if a waterway system can be developed on the Ganga without drastically impeding the flow of the river or without having to deeply dredge the river bed to allow larger boats to ply. Can traffic on the river be increased without disturbing the nesting and breeding grounds of valuable aquatic fauna? Or even without disturbing those who come to the riverside for religious and cultural rituals?

These are important and complex issues that need to be addressed before the river can be developed as a waterway. The World Bank is therefore working with the Inland Waterways Authority of India to

study the possible social and environmental impacts of various design interventions so that the most appropriate fitting option can be chosen.

And since some of these challenges have been tackled by other countries facing similar issues, the World Bank is helping the government explore and access the latest technology that can help mitigate some of these impacts. For instance, deep dredging can be avoided by bringing in state-of-the-art, low-draft vessels that can ply in shallower depths. And latest technical design knowledge can be brought in to ensure that the boats on the Ganga use only clean fuels and that the cargo terminals built along the waterway discharge no effluents into the river.

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The Need for Strategic Basin Planning I

t is evident then that the development of the Ganga for economic activities will have to be done in conjunction with, and through the prism of ensuring the ecological and environmental sustainability of the river and its basin. The key to achieving sustainability is ensuring that planning takes into account the entire basin, and not just individual investments or projects.

Strategic river basin planning is thus at the heart of the overall rejuvenation agenda. The global experience with mighty rivers such as the Danube, the Rhine and the Nile is that strong planning organisations capable of generating basinscale knowledge, identifying pollution hotspots, prioritising investments, and advising on policy are central to rejuvenating rivers.

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The first important step has been taken with the creation of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) and its associated operational-level National Mission for Clean Ganga, supported by the World Bank through a long-standing engagement. Going forward, it will be important to establish a well-resourced, evidence-based and participatory strategic basin planning process that can guide and balance both river rejuvenation and economic development.

Restoring the health of the Ganga river will take an enormous pooling of efforts by a broad range of stakeholders over a period of many years. Nonetheless, actions taken today to balance environmental and economic outcomes in the Ganga basin can pave the way for India managing its growth in a sustainable manner.

What does Strategic Basin Planning involve?

A strategic basin planning process requires several elements: First, the government needs to establish a process of engagement with key stakeholders that can focus on the development of a shared vision for the basin, especially identifying development opportunities that are compatible with river rejuvenation.

Second, Indian technical organisations need to be supported in accessing the wide international experience with strategic basin planning.

Third, a comprehensive audit of all pollution sources (both point and non-point) and pollution loads needs to be done, to determine realistic and time-bound pollution reduction targets.

It is important to accept that not all pollution can be stopped immediately.

Fourth, clear river health objectives should be established. These should be linked to water quality targets and environmental flow targets, so governments and stakeholders can track progress and analyse scenarios for alternative options for water allocation, pollution control and environmental flows.

Fifth, a centralised--and publicly accessible--basin information system should be established that combines data from monitoring, scenario modelling and other activities.

Finally, a commitment to public reporting of river health needs to be made to inform public debate and ensure accountability.

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Photos: Anirban Dutta; Sona Thakur (inside cover & pg. 9); Dilip Banerjee (back cover)