30 Minutes: The Ganga is dying

CHOKED TO THE BRIM: India's most sacred river, River Ganga, has been reduced to a sewage drain.

      

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

Television, for politicians with a vision

Featured Slideshows

Related Headlines

powered by

• Dolphins die as the Ganga chokes
• Bachchan girl out to save dolphins
• No moksha for Ganga in Varanasi

Keywords: Sewage, Dolphins

The world's mightiest rivers are dying

New Delhi: It's a crisis sweeping all major rivers in the world. As the world observes Water Day, experts from World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) warn that the world's mightiest rivers are dying, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people.

The report suggests that the people engaged in water-based livelihoods are the ones who will suffer the most.

The River Ganga is among the five most threatened rivers of the world. China's River Yangtze tops the list, followed by River Salween in Burma, and River Indus that flows through India and Pakistan. The Ganga is at a fragile number four, followed by River Mekong, which that feeds most of South-East Asia.

The report makes it clear that water extraction, dams, and climate change are the top three threats faced by the world's rivers.

The shrinking of the Ganga will lead to a loss of water-based livelihoods. The Sunderbans or the Ganga delta located mainly in Bangladesh and parts of Bengal, is the most affected because 60 per cent of the water there is now diverted through dams for farming.

Say a resident, Lata Rani Mandal, "My father in law's house had 20 bighas of land, but we lost them to the river. Then we had no option but to start collecting prawn seeds."

The statistics are staggering. With dams altering their natural flow, industrial effluents polluting their waters, 20 per cent of the world's 10,000 freshwater species have become extinct and over 40 per cent of the world's population that depend on rivers will be affected.

Says WWF CEO, Ravi Singh, "It's going to affect agriculture in a huge way. It's going to affect bio-diversity and the circle of life will be broken."

Experts are wary of predicting when these rivers could become extinct, but the gradual loss of water and livelihoods is a warning that time may not be far away.

(With inputs from Shuchi Yadav)