Question 4- what problems face the Ganges today? How have they come about? What solutions have been tried or suggested so far?.
The Ganges River runs through the central Himalayas, flowing through northern India plains. It provides water and drainage to over 350 million people. .
It's a very important river, playing a major part in the economic, social and cultural aspects in people's lives. .
People bathe in the Ganges River, believing it is a "direct route to heaven". This adds to its high pollution. Towns and industry dump a lot of waste into the waters. .
When the water is past a large industrial center, Kanpur, it's load of human, animal, and industrial waste becomes immense. For every litre of water, there is 50mg of water pollution. This is 17 times higher than the limit. Organisms like fish have a slower rate of bacterial processing. It threatens rare species of fish, dolphins and soft-shell turtles. .
With something like 250 million litres of sewerage produced each day, and only the capacity to treat 100 million litres, the remains spill into the river. The river is responsible for a host of diseases: hepatitis, amoebic dysentery, typhoid, cholera and cancer. .
The Ganga Action plan was launched in 1986 in an effort to clean the river. Fifteen years later, little has been done. $600 million has been spent in attempts to help the state of the river; most was spent on inappropriate technology, like sewage treatment plants that require constant energy that is just not available.