Killing the Ganges with Justin Rowlatt Our World

That is one story we will have more detail on the website, but in a

moment... The Ganges is one of the greatest

rivers in the world, Pollution on a vast scale has

turned its sacred waters All the while, so much water

is being taken out that large stretches of the river don't

flow for months. The Indian prime minister has

staked his political reputation But is the Ganges,

India's sacred river, And the glacier that is

the source of the Ganges. A small stream emerges

from a cave in the ice. Gomukh, the Cow's Mouth,

they call it, one of the most sacred As the river descends

from the mountains, it gathers pace. It is known as Ganga

Mata, Mother Ganges, As I will be discovering

on this incredible journey, the Ganges has nurtured

and supported the rise of India's great civilisation,

but this mighty river Here in the Himalayas, the water

looks pristine, crystal clear. Now, that looks good enough

to drink, but actually the studies show that even here,

the waters of the Ganges As we travelled down

from the source, the issues become In the holy city of Rishikesh,

an ancient fire ritual begins. It is performed in celebration

and in worship of Mother Ganges. While hundreds of millions

of Indians revere the river, they are also pouring

their waste into it. It is a burden the Ganges simply

cannot bear any more. Ganges is not mere water to Indians,

it is the mother, a goddess. Sitting on the banks of Ganga,

I can tell you that before we take a bath in the Ganga,

I think the time has come People think Ganga can take

care of my sins, can And they forget, yes,

Ganga can take care of my sins, Cleaning the river has become

symbolic of an even bigger project. India's effort to lift its people

out of poverty and become When Narendra Modi won a landslide

victory two years ago, one of the first commitments he made

was to tackle pollution He has promised serious money,

he said he will spend more than $3 billion over the next five

years on his clean Ganga mission. But delivering on his promise may be

one of his greatest challenges, because if anything speaks

of the failure of governance in India, it is the abuse this

great river is suffering. There is no better example

than Kanpur, 700 kilometres from Rishikesh and the centre

of India's India is one of the biggest

producers of leather in the world. Most of the leather produced

here is exported, much of it, But the leather industry

is very polluting. A local environmental

campaigner takes me on a tour of what he claims is

India's dirtiest town. Indian politicians have been

talking about cleaning up But he says pollution

has only got worse. Take a look at this, I have to say,

it really, really smells here. These poor people have

to live beside this drain. Looking down at the water, you can

see it is black with effluent. What kind of waste

do we have in here? Waste water coming

from the tanneries. And you know, tanneries use

a variety of chemicals, Including dangerous ones

like chromium are used to soften Yes, heavy metals and

pesticides as well. He says this drain, like many,

many others, still pours, It is a shocking indictment

of the efforts to clean the river. This is where that awful drain,

which you can still smell here, that drain runs down

into the Ganges. When I started 20 years back

I used to see the river I have only seen the situation

worsening from bad to worse, and you can see the pollution now,

it is killing the town. and you can see the pollution now,

it is killing the river. The man in charge of

the prime minister's problems need to be tackled,

but he says progress is being made. They didn't use the law

to bear upon the industry You can say corruption

is part of it. When we did a survey,

we found there were about 444 Whe we saw the licences, we found

there were only 267 licences. He sent us out with a team

of pollution inspectors to demonstrate that

things are changing. He is stopping something

happening down there. This is where they strip

the flesh from the hides, It is disgusting, you can

see the flesh running There are huge puddles

of water, which is that It is blue because

there is Chrome in it? He says this drain is connected

to the treatment plant We have to literally wade

through these hides, and they are all swollen

and bloated. It is like walking on rubber,

that is disgusting. You said to me that

segregation and separation... It is required, but

there is none here. Almost 100 tanneries

have been shut down, but I'm shocked that somewhere

like that place is still operating. You will be saying

to close this place? There are other pollution

problems here in Kanpur, Rakesh has brought me

to the outflow of the main effluent treatment plant,

which treats sewage Let me remind you, this

is the treated water. The government admits

that the existing plant can only cope with a fraction of the waste

from the tanneries. That's right, on to the fields,

where it goes on to 2500 hectares. The problem is not just

what is going into the river, It is relatively easy to get water

here. You don't have to dig that deep. But it is pretty hard doing

the digging. What they have done is they have dug a hole about 20 feet,

seven metres deep. And now they have dug a tube down and they have to dig

deeper and deeper, until the idea is, they hit the water table. They

have put an electric pump into the well head. It is working and this is

the water coming through. This comes from the water table around here.

But essentially, this is Ganges water. Which is amount of water they

are taking is such an important issue. That was quite interesting. I

am joined by a man who works with the world wildlife front. How much

limits are there on how much water farmers can take from wells like

these. TRANSLATION: There is no limit. They can use as much ground

water as they like. The government doesn't charge them anything, the

only cost is for the price of the diesel. So just what it costs to

take the water out, that is the only limit? But at what cost for the

Ganges? They can easily draw out the water from the river. So all the

water farmers use across these vast plains, all that water is

essentially water being taken from the supplied to the Ganges? Yes. So

you have less water in the river? TRANSLATION: The more they are

pumping from these wells, the more they are taking from the Ganges.

Farmers are crucial, electoral constituency and over the years,

politicians have attempted to buy their favour by offering incentives

to install pumps. The result has been water intensive farming

practices. Ground water levels have been falling dramatically and so has

the flow in some parts of the Ganges. But work by the world

wildlife front has shown it is possible to get farmers to use less

water. Instead of flooding whole fields, they now limit water use by

using a series of dams. TRANSLATION: The amount of water we use now has

gone down by half. As a result, we use less water and get more profits.

And the crops are also good. Do you think of farmers will begin to use

the water-saving measures you have begun to introduce here?

TRANSLATION: Yes, everybody is doing it. It makes sense. We get more

profits and cutout carbon emissions. A few hundred kilometres down the

river we come to one of the greatest cities in all of India. Have are

nasty. It is one of the oldest, continuous occupied cities in the

world. People have been living here for more than 3000 years. It is the

holiest city in Hinduism but is also another huge source of pollution.

Cleaning the river means addressing ancient practices like Riverside

cremation. Hindus believe that being burned on a funeral pyre beside the

Ganges brings the ultimate Emancipation, liberation, from the

cycle of death and rebirth. It is reckoned 32,000 human corpses are

cremated here each year, with up to 300 tonnes of half burnt human flesh

released into the Ganges. But it is the bodily waste of the living that

is the biggest challenge here. The first Ganges action plan 30 years

ago, commissioned a series of huge sewage plants, but muscular

infrastructure has not solved the problem. Studies show just 20

descent of the sewage produced along the Ganges is treated. The rest...

Goes into the river. Which is why faecal contamination here at

Varanasi is almost 150 times the safe level for bathing. It helps

explain one of the most shocking statistics of all about India, the

fact that 300,000 children under five die each year from diarrhoea.

So what is Mr Modi's clean ganga mission doing about it? I have come

to the nerve centre of Mr Modi's effort to clean the Ganges. As the

Prime Minister bitten off more than he can chew? We have taken lessons

from past mistakes. We are correcting it, so therefore there is

tremendous focus and he is leading from the front. Therefore, we are

very confident we will achieve our target. But what we are not seeing

as we travelled down the Ganges is concrete evidence? Fires will ensure

there is a marked difference. But it is a long project. The Thames, was

the same, filthy 50 or 60 years ago. They also took 20 years to change

the whole ecology of that. We will also achieve it. Let's hope he is

right, because the Ganges sustains a unique ecosystem and one of the

rarest animals in the world, the Ganges river dolphin. What's more,

they still survive in the main stretch of the river between the

tanneries and the temples of Varanasi. We have come down to the

Ganges and the hope was we might be able to spot the incredibly rare

Ganges dolphin. Incredibly, within minutes of rising, I saw the dorsal

fin of one of them, break the water. The challenge will be filming them.

We have hired a little boat. This is it. This is Sanjay, the cameraman.

How difficult will it be to film the Dolphins, we have seen a couple? It

is quite tough because they pop up suddenly. You are an expert on the

Dolphins, you work for the world wildlife fund and one of the

programmes is to protect his rare animal, how rare is the Gangetic

dolphin? The Gangetic dolphin is an endangered species and it is pretty

rare to spot these animals. But today, there seemed to be Dolphins

all around. Six, seven. Look. So big. They have the surface every two

minutes or so to breed. The challenge is guessing where they are

going to be. Just over here. You also get a sense of how big they

are. But after a bit, Sanjay gets his eye in and just look at this. I

have got one. That is really good. This has been extraordinary. I never

expected to see anything like as many Dolphins as we have seen. It is

such incredibly good news, because what it tells us is this river is

capable of supporting these wonderful animals. It also shows us

what is at stake and why it is so important the Indian government's

efforts to clean up this river succeed. The last stage of our

journey takes us to the mouth of the river at Kanga saga. It is feared

the Ganges ends its 2500 kilometre journey where it finally meets the

ocean. This is another holy site. And we visit in one of the most

auspicious of days. 1 million pilgrims have come to celebrate the

goddess Gana from the heavens. The Indian Prime Minister knows he will

be judged on what he achieves with the Ganges. It is a test of India's

ability to become a modern nation. It means tackling corruption,

introducing proper regulation, as well as massive investment in waste

treatment. But Mr Modi has a key advantage, the fact that so many

Indians want him to succeed. And if India can clean up one of the

dirtiest rivers in the world, who knows what else this great rising

nation can achieve.