:00:00. > 3:59:59That is one story we will have more detail on the website, but in a
:00:00. > :00:00.moment... The Ganges is one of the greatest
:00:00. > :00:07.rivers in the world, Pollution on a vast scale has
:00:08. > :00:17.turned its sacred waters All the while, so much water
:00:18. > :00:46.is being taken out that large stretches of the river don't
:00:47. > :00:54.flow for months. The Indian prime minister has
:00:55. > :00:56.staked his political reputation But is the Ganges,
:00:57. > :01:03.India's sacred river, And the glacier that is
:01:04. > :01:41.the source of the Ganges. A small stream emerges
:01:42. > :01:47.from a cave in the ice. Gomukh, the Cow's Mouth,
:01:48. > :01:52.they call it, one of the most sacred As the river descends
:01:53. > :02:06.from the mountains, it gathers pace. It is known as Ganga
:02:07. > :02:08.Mata, Mother Ganges, As I will be discovering
:02:09. > :02:15.on this incredible journey, the Ganges has nurtured
:02:16. > :02:17.and supported the rise of India's great civilisation,
:02:18. > :02:23.but this mighty river Here in the Himalayas, the water
:02:24. > :02:30.looks pristine, crystal clear. Now, that looks good enough
:02:31. > :02:44.to drink, but actually the studies show that even here,
:02:45. > :02:46.the waters of the Ganges As we travelled down
:02:47. > :02:54.from the source, the issues become In the holy city of Rishikesh,
:02:55. > :03:11.an ancient fire ritual begins. It is performed in celebration
:03:12. > :03:17.and in worship of Mother Ganges. While hundreds of millions
:03:18. > :03:25.of Indians revere the river, they are also pouring
:03:26. > :03:31.their waste into it. It is a burden the Ganges simply
:03:32. > :03:40.cannot bear any more. Ganges is not mere water to Indians,
:03:41. > :03:43.it is the mother, a goddess. Sitting on the banks of Ganga,
:03:44. > :03:47.I can tell you that before we take a bath in the Ganga,
:03:48. > :03:49.I think the time has come People think Ganga can take
:03:50. > :03:53.care of my sins, can And they forget, yes,
:03:54. > :04:00.Ganga can take care of my sins, Cleaning the river has become
:04:01. > :04:17.symbolic of an even bigger project. India's effort to lift its people
:04:18. > :04:20.out of poverty and become When Narendra Modi won a landslide
:04:21. > :04:29.victory two years ago, one of the first commitments he made
:04:30. > :04:32.was to tackle pollution He has promised serious money,
:04:33. > :04:37.he said he will spend more than $3 billion over the next five
:04:38. > :04:43.years on his clean Ganga mission. But delivering on his promise may be
:04:44. > :04:49.one of his greatest challenges, because if anything speaks
:04:50. > :04:51.of the failure of governance in India, it is the abuse this
:04:52. > :04:56.great river is suffering. There is no better example
:04:57. > :05:00.than Kanpur, 700 kilometres from Rishikesh and the centre
:05:01. > :05:02.of India's India is one of the biggest
:05:03. > :05:08.producers of leather in the world. Most of the leather produced
:05:09. > :05:11.here is exported, much of it, But the leather industry
:05:12. > :05:16.is very polluting. A local environmental
:05:17. > :05:30.campaigner takes me on a tour of what he claims is
:05:31. > :05:38.India's dirtiest town. Indian politicians have been
:05:39. > :05:42.talking about cleaning up But he says pollution
:05:43. > :05:48.has only got worse. Take a look at this, I have to say,
:05:49. > :05:55.it really, really smells here. These poor people have
:05:56. > :05:58.to live beside this drain. Looking down at the water, you can
:05:59. > :06:07.see it is black with effluent. What kind of waste
:06:08. > :06:32.do we have in here? Waste water coming
:06:33. > :06:41.from the tanneries. And you know, tanneries use
:06:42. > :06:43.a variety of chemicals, Including dangerous ones
:06:44. > :06:49.like chromium are used to soften Yes, heavy metals and
:06:50. > :06:55.pesticides as well. He says this drain, like many,
:06:56. > :06:59.many others, still pours, It is a shocking indictment
:07:00. > :07:10.of the efforts to clean the river. This is where that awful drain,
:07:11. > :07:14.which you can still smell here, that drain runs down
:07:15. > :07:19.into the Ganges. When I started 20 years back
:07:20. > :07:27.I used to see the river I have only seen the situation
:07:28. > :07:33.worsening from bad to worse, and you can see the pollution now,
:07:34. > :07:43.it is killing the town. and you can see the pollution now,
:07:44. > :07:46.it is killing the river. The man in charge of
:07:47. > :07:49.the prime minister's problems need to be tackled,
:07:50. > :07:54.but he says progress is being made. They didn't use the law
:07:55. > :07:56.to bear upon the industry You can say corruption
:07:57. > :08:07.is part of it. When we did a survey,
:08:08. > :08:09.we found there were about 444 Whe we saw the licences, we found
:08:10. > :08:18.there were only 267 licences. He sent us out with a team
:08:19. > :08:22.of pollution inspectors to demonstrate that
:08:23. > :08:25.things are changing. He is stopping something
:08:26. > :08:50.happening down there. This is where they strip
:08:51. > :09:16.the flesh from the hides, It is disgusting, you can
:09:17. > :09:21.see the flesh running There are huge puddles
:09:22. > :09:27.of water, which is that It is blue because
:09:28. > :09:50.there is Chrome in it? He says this drain is connected
:09:51. > :10:02.to the treatment plant We have to literally wade
:10:03. > :10:05.through these hides, and they are all swollen
:10:06. > :10:12.and bloated. It is like walking on rubber,
:10:13. > :10:29.that is disgusting. You said to me that
:10:30. > :10:34.segregation and separation... It is required, but
:10:35. > :10:36.there is none here. Almost 100 tanneries
:10:37. > :10:40.have been shut down, but I'm shocked that somewhere
:10:41. > :10:43.like that place is still operating. You will be saying
:10:44. > :11:02.to close this place? There are other pollution
:11:03. > :11:16.problems here in Kanpur, Rakesh has brought me
:11:17. > :11:29.to the outflow of the main effluent treatment plant,
:11:30. > :11:30.which treats sewage Let me remind you, this
:11:31. > :11:35.is the treated water. The government admits
:11:36. > :11:37.that the existing plant can only cope with a fraction of the waste
:11:38. > :11:40.from the tanneries. That's right, on to the fields,
:11:41. > :12:17.where it goes on to 2500 hectares. The problem is not just
:12:18. > :12:29.what is going into the river, It is relatively easy to get water
:12:30. > :12:34.here. You don't have to dig that deep. But it is pretty hard doing
:12:35. > :12:41.the digging. What they have done is they have dug a hole about 20 feet,
:12:42. > :12:47.seven metres deep. And now they have dug a tube down and they have to dig
:12:48. > :12:54.deeper and deeper, until the idea is, they hit the water table. They
:12:55. > :12:59.have put an electric pump into the well head. It is working and this is
:13:00. > :13:03.the water coming through. This comes from the water table around here.
:13:04. > :13:12.But essentially, this is Ganges water. Which is amount of water they
:13:13. > :13:24.are taking is such an important issue. That was quite interesting. I
:13:25. > :13:28.am joined by a man who works with the world wildlife front. How much
:13:29. > :13:33.limits are there on how much water farmers can take from wells like
:13:34. > :13:39.these. TRANSLATION: There is no limit. They can use as much ground
:13:40. > :13:42.water as they like. The government doesn't charge them anything, the
:13:43. > :13:49.only cost is for the price of the diesel. So just what it costs to
:13:50. > :13:53.take the water out, that is the only limit? But at what cost for the
:13:54. > :14:01.Ganges? They can easily draw out the water from the river. So all the
:14:02. > :14:04.water farmers use across these vast plains, all that water is
:14:05. > :14:13.essentially water being taken from the supplied to the Ganges? Yes. So
:14:14. > :14:16.you have less water in the river? TRANSLATION: The more they are
:14:17. > :14:24.pumping from these wells, the more they are taking from the Ganges.
:14:25. > :14:27.Farmers are crucial, electoral constituency and over the years,
:14:28. > :14:34.politicians have attempted to buy their favour by offering incentives
:14:35. > :14:39.to install pumps. The result has been water intensive farming
:14:40. > :14:43.practices. Ground water levels have been falling dramatically and so has
:14:44. > :14:48.the flow in some parts of the Ganges. But work by the world
:14:49. > :14:55.wildlife front has shown it is possible to get farmers to use less
:14:56. > :15:04.water. Instead of flooding whole fields, they now limit water use by
:15:05. > :15:09.using a series of dams. TRANSLATION: The amount of water we use now has
:15:10. > :15:16.gone down by half. As a result, we use less water and get more profits.
:15:17. > :15:20.And the crops are also good. Do you think of farmers will begin to use
:15:21. > :15:24.the water-saving measures you have begun to introduce here?
:15:25. > :15:32.TRANSLATION: Yes, everybody is doing it. It makes sense. We get more
:15:33. > :15:35.profits and cutout carbon emissions. A few hundred kilometres down the
:15:36. > :15:44.river we come to one of the greatest cities in all of India. Have are
:15:45. > :15:53.nasty. It is one of the oldest, continuous occupied cities in the
:15:54. > :16:07.world. People have been living here for more than 3000 years. It is the
:16:08. > :16:25.holiest city in Hinduism but is also another huge source of pollution.
:16:26. > :16:39.Cleaning the river means addressing ancient practices like Riverside
:16:40. > :16:45.cremation. Hindus believe that being burned on a funeral pyre beside the
:16:46. > :16:55.Ganges brings the ultimate Emancipation, liberation, from the
:16:56. > :16:58.cycle of death and rebirth. It is reckoned 32,000 human corpses are
:16:59. > :17:07.cremated here each year, with up to 300 tonnes of half burnt human flesh
:17:08. > :17:14.released into the Ganges. But it is the bodily waste of the living that
:17:15. > :17:19.is the biggest challenge here. The first Ganges action plan 30 years
:17:20. > :17:21.ago, commissioned a series of huge sewage plants, but muscular
:17:22. > :17:30.infrastructure has not solved the problem. Studies show just 20
:17:31. > :17:38.descent of the sewage produced along the Ganges is treated. The rest...
:17:39. > :17:42.Goes into the river. Which is why faecal contamination here at
:17:43. > :17:48.Varanasi is almost 150 times the safe level for bathing. It helps
:17:49. > :17:54.explain one of the most shocking statistics of all about India, the
:17:55. > :18:08.fact that 300,000 children under five die each year from diarrhoea.
:18:09. > :18:13.So what is Mr Modi's clean ganga mission doing about it? I have come
:18:14. > :18:17.to the nerve centre of Mr Modi's effort to clean the Ganges. As the
:18:18. > :18:26.Prime Minister bitten off more than he can chew? We have taken lessons
:18:27. > :18:31.from past mistakes. We are correcting it, so therefore there is
:18:32. > :18:36.tremendous focus and he is leading from the front. Therefore, we are
:18:37. > :18:40.very confident we will achieve our target. But what we are not seeing
:18:41. > :18:47.as we travelled down the Ganges is concrete evidence? Fires will ensure
:18:48. > :18:59.there is a marked difference. But it is a long project. The Thames, was
:19:00. > :19:04.the same, filthy 50 or 60 years ago. They also took 20 years to change
:19:05. > :19:11.the whole ecology of that. We will also achieve it. Let's hope he is
:19:12. > :19:16.right, because the Ganges sustains a unique ecosystem and one of the
:19:17. > :19:23.rarest animals in the world, the Ganges river dolphin. What's more,
:19:24. > :19:29.they still survive in the main stretch of the river between the
:19:30. > :19:33.tanneries and the temples of Varanasi. We have come down to the
:19:34. > :19:39.Ganges and the hope was we might be able to spot the incredibly rare
:19:40. > :19:45.Ganges dolphin. Incredibly, within minutes of rising, I saw the dorsal
:19:46. > :19:49.fin of one of them, break the water. The challenge will be filming them.
:19:50. > :19:56.We have hired a little boat. This is it. This is Sanjay, the cameraman.
:19:57. > :20:00.How difficult will it be to film the Dolphins, we have seen a couple? It
:20:01. > :20:06.is quite tough because they pop up suddenly. You are an expert on the
:20:07. > :20:10.Dolphins, you work for the world wildlife fund and one of the
:20:11. > :20:17.programmes is to protect his rare animal, how rare is the Gangetic
:20:18. > :20:23.dolphin? The Gangetic dolphin is an endangered species and it is pretty
:20:24. > :20:31.rare to spot these animals. But today, there seemed to be Dolphins
:20:32. > :20:38.all around. Six, seven. Look. So big. They have the surface every two
:20:39. > :20:44.minutes or so to breed. The challenge is guessing where they are
:20:45. > :20:55.going to be. Just over here. You also get a sense of how big they
:20:56. > :20:58.are. But after a bit, Sanjay gets his eye in and just look at this. I
:20:59. > :21:23.have got one. That is really good. This has been extraordinary. I never
:21:24. > :21:29.expected to see anything like as many Dolphins as we have seen. It is
:21:30. > :21:33.such incredibly good news, because what it tells us is this river is
:21:34. > :21:38.capable of supporting these wonderful animals. It also shows us
:21:39. > :21:42.what is at stake and why it is so important the Indian government's
:21:43. > :21:48.efforts to clean up this river succeed. The last stage of our
:21:49. > :21:54.journey takes us to the mouth of the river at Kanga saga. It is feared
:21:55. > :22:02.the Ganges ends its 2500 kilometre journey where it finally meets the
:22:03. > :22:10.ocean. This is another holy site. And we visit in one of the most
:22:11. > :22:20.auspicious of days. 1 million pilgrims have come to celebrate the
:22:21. > :22:24.goddess Gana from the heavens. The Indian Prime Minister knows he will
:22:25. > :22:30.be judged on what he achieves with the Ganges. It is a test of India's
:22:31. > :22:36.ability to become a modern nation. It means tackling corruption,
:22:37. > :22:42.introducing proper regulation, as well as massive investment in waste
:22:43. > :22:48.treatment. But Mr Modi has a key advantage, the fact that so many
:22:49. > :22:52.Indians want him to succeed. And if India can clean up one of the
:22:53. > :22:56.dirtiest rivers in the world, who knows what else this great rising
:22:57. > :23:08.nation can achieve.