A guest article by Mr. Manikandan Soundararajan

1. Ganga river: Geography
2. What’s the problem with Ganga?
3. National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA)?
4. Who’re the Members of NGRBA?
5. What’re the Functions of NGRBA?
6. What is BOD?

Ganga river: Geography

• It rises from the gangotri glacier with the name Bhagirathi
• It meets two of her tributaries Mandakini and alaknanda at Devaprayag from where she is known as Ganga.
• It was warded the National river status in 2009.

What’s the problem with Ganga?

• rising pollution of the river.
•  To address this problem cleaning mission was organized under the Ganga Action Plan I in 1985, without much development.
• again Ganga Action Plan II was set up in 1993 which included cleaning of Yamuna and Gomati as well.
• Again to clean all National rivers National River conservation plan was set up in 1996.
• Finally to hasten measures, a National Ganga River Basin Authority was set up in 2009 to have a focused action.

National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA)?

• For  planning, monitoring, financing, coordinating actions for the Ganga river.
• This organization was setup under the Environment protection act 1986.

Who’re the Members of NGRBA?

• PM
• Cabinet ministers
  • Ministers of environment and forests,
  • Finance,
  • Urban Development,
  • Water resources,
  • Power,
  • Science and Tech
• Minister of state (Environment and Forests).
• Deputy chairman of Planning commission
• Chief minsters of states through which Ganga passes
• Uttarkand
• U.P
• West Bengal
• Bihar
• Jharkhand
• Sankat Mochan
• Tarun Bhagat Sangh (of Rajendra singh, the Magsaysay awardee).
• NGOs

What’re the Functions of NGRBA?

• Reduce Ganga Polution.
• Moniter and finance the activities to cleaning Ganga.
• Investigation, research into problems of pollution, conservation of Ganga.
• Collection, dissemination of information.
• Promoting recycling, reuse of water, rainwater harvesting, sewage treatment.
• The authority aims at reduction pollution, controlling industrial pollutant inflow, essentially reducing BOD to 30mg/litre.

What is BOD?

• Biochemical Oxygen Demand
• It is the  demand for oxygen in water body by aerobic bacteria present in them.
• Used to indicate the level of organic pollutants present in water, usually to indicate the quality of water.
• Actually these bacteria do a beneficial activity of chemically breaking down the organic elements in water.
• But in the process they consume oxygen in water at a more rapid pace than they can be replaced by atmosphere.
• Net demand for oxygen is proportional to number of Bacteria inside which in turn is proportional to the amount of organic pollutants present.