Background

The Ganga River, considered sacred by millions of people, suffers from severe pollution due to industrial effluents, untreated sewage, agricultural runoff, and religious offerings. The degradation of the Ganga's water quality has raised concerns about public health, aquatic ecosystems, and the sustainability of river-dependent livelihoods.

a) Launched on January 14th, 1986 by Shri Rajeev Gandhi, India's then- Prime Minister.

b) Primary goal: To reduce pollution and improve water quality by intercepting, diverting, and treating domestic sewage as well as current toxic and industrial  chemical waste entering the river from identified grossly polluting units.

c) The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) is a government-funded initiative.

d) The National River Ganga Basin Authority was founded under this concept, and Ganga was declared a national river of India.

e) The Ministry of Environment and Forests took up the first River Action Plan, the Ganga Action Plan, in 1985.

f) Since then, the program’s scope has expanded to include all of the country’s major rivers, with the National River Conservation Plan– NRCP extending the programme to other significant rivers in 1995.

Why need a Ganga Action Plan?

1. During the late 1970s, the development in industrialization and urbanization resulted in a significant increase in the discharge of untreated sewage into water bodies.

2. This increased level of pollution raised the risk of water- borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and other illnesses, as well as reduced the supply of clean drinking water.

3. Due to behaviour's such as open defecation, the release of untreated industrial runoff, and other factors, the major river, Ganga, experienced a significant increase in contamination.

4. All of this happened as a result of a lack of public knowledge and no rules in place to keep these sectors under control.

GAP Objectives 

✓ The GAP’s ultimate goal is to develop an integrated river basin management approach that takes

into account the different dynamic interactions between abiotic and biotic ecosystems.

✓ Non-point pollution from agricultural runoff, human excrement, cow wallowing, and the dumping

of unburned or half-burned bodies into rivers must be controlled.

✓ Research and development to protect the river’s biological variety and increase its productivity.

✓ New sewage treatment technologies, such as the Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) and

sewage treatment through afforestation, has been developed effectively.

✓ The use of soft-shelled turtles for river pollution abatement has been proven and found to be

beneficial.

✓ Resource recovery options have been demonstrated, such as methane production for energy

generation and aquaculture for revenue creation.

✓ To serve as a model for implementing comparable action initiatives in other heavily contaminated

river segments.

GAP Phase I

1. Three states were covered in the first phase.

2. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal are the three states that make up Uttar Pradesh.

3. Began in January 1986 and Ended in March 2000.

4. This phase was a completely government-funded project aimed at preventing pollution of the Ganga.

5. The GAP Phase-1 cost a total of Rs.452 crores to complete.

6. This strategy was developed based on a study conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 1984.

7. In 1985, the total sewage generated from 25 Class 1 municipalities was projected to be roughly 1340 million litres per day, according to the CPCB survey.

8. A total of 261 pollution abatement projects covering 25 towns in three states, namely Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Bihar, were sanctioned at a cost of Rs. 462 crore to complete this mission.

9. On March 31, 2000, the GAP-1 was declared closed. A sewage treatment capacity of 865 million litres per day was established as part of this proposal.

GAP Phase II

1. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Delhi, and Haryana were included in Phase 2.

2. The Yamuna, Gomti, Mahananda, and Damodar tributaries of the Ganga were included in Phase 2.

3. Phase 1 of the Ganga Action Plan did not address the whole extent of the river's pollution, GAP Phase 2, which included plans for the Yamuna, Damodar, and Gomti in addition to the Ganga, was approved in stages between 1993 and 1996.

4. Under two different programmes, the Ganga Action Plan Phase – II and the National River Conservation Plan (NRCP), with the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) as its parent body, the initiative was extended to other major rivers in India (from the year 2014).

5. The Yamuna and Gomti Action Plans were adopted as part of GAP Phase II in April 1993.

6. Following that, in 1995, the NRCP approved projects for several major rivers.

7. Following the establishment of the NRCP in 1995, the Ganga Action Plan-2 was merged with the NRCP.

Outside agencies role in Ganga Action Plan

1. The japan international corporation Agency (JICA) has offered technical support for a Development Study on the "Water Quality Management Plan for Ganga" .

2. It focuses on four towns: Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, and Varanasi.

3. The JICA Study Team/Consultants hired by JICA to conduct the study began working in March 2003 and finished in August/September 2005.

4. The study's main goal was to create Master Plans and Feasibility Studies for the four towns' sewerage (including sewage treatment) and non-sewerage components.

5. The JICA Study Team had submitted a Master Plan and Feasibility Studies report for sewerage and non-sewerage works in Varanasi town in the first phase during 2004-05, based on which the JBIC had signed an agreement with the Government of India for providing a loan for taking up pollution abatement schemes of the river Ganga in this town at an estimated cost of Rs.540 crore (13.248 billion Yen).

6. JICA has received the final Feasibility Study Reports for the remaining three towns of Allahabad, Kanpur, and Lucknow, which include the opinions of the respective organizations.

7. The cost of GAP-II projects in the three towns is expected to be Rs.1100 crore (Allahabad- Rs.305 crore, Kanpur-Rs.425 crore & Lucknow-Rs.375 crore).