Reviving Adi Ganga: Central funds, international project give hope

Subject :Geography

Section : Indian Physical Geography

Context:

The National Mission for Clean Ganga has allotted around Rs 650 crore to revive the ancient river, the Adi Ganga (the original channel of River Ganga passing through the city of Kolkata), and it has also been included in a multi-country river project on combating pollution.

More on the news:

The developments come after the National Green Tribunal had directed the West Bengal government to complete its rejuvenation by 2025.
The panelists at an international water conference organised in Sylhet, Bangladesh by the non-profit Action Aid decided to explore the possibility of a pan-south Asian project to address the pollution of one key river each in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, China and Malaysia. Adi Ganga was selected from India.
Apart from Adi Ganga, Buriganga in Bangladesh, Puyang in China, Bagmati in Nepal and Klang in Malaysia were also chosen for pollution study

About the river: Adi Ganga

Adi Ganga (also known as the Gobindapur Creek and Tolly’s Canal), is a stream that was part of the Hooghly River in the Kolkata area of India.
Adi Ganga was the river’s main channel till the 17th century.
- Source of the river- Sundarbans
- Around 1750, a canal was dug to connect the main course of the river with the lower part of River Saraswati adjacent to
- The resultant Hooghly became the main river stretch and Adi Ganga turned into a secondary tributary.
However, Adi Ganga continued to thrive till the 1970s. Since then, its water quality gradually deteriorated until it turned into a sewer and got rapidly encroached, even fully filled up just beyond the boundary of the city’s municipal corporation.
Also the choking of Adi Ganga severely impacted the natural drainage of the area.
According to the state pollution control board data the dissolved oxygen is zero for Adi Ganga river.
After crossing the Kolkata city, the river vanishes into the concrete houses, halls and roads.

Efforts to clean the river:

In 1998 the Calcutta High Court directed removal of all encroachments within a month, but a report, came after two decade of the order, showed that the encroachments were still existing.
The expansion of the Metro Rail in 2009 from the Tollygunge tram depot to Garia in the southern part of the city accentuated the situation as 300 pillars supporting the rails were being anchored at the middle of the channel.