National River The Ganga

• Third meet of NGRBA held

                              

What is NGRBA why is it important:

• Ganga source of livelihood for entire north India is more than a river  a sacred Goddess  to our people.
• Rising from the gangotri glacier with the name Bhagirathi, she meets two of her tributaries Mandakini and alaknanda at Devaprayag from where she is known as Ganga.
• Realising the role played by Ganga in the lives of Indians and her links in our History she was awarded the National river status in 2009.
• The serious concern was the rising pollution of the river's confluences. To address this problem cleaning mission was organised 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.

NGRBA:

• Keeping the river basin as the basic unit of planning, an empowered committee for planning , monitoring, financing, coordinating actions for the Ganga river with powers under the Environment protection act 1986, to ensure abatement of pollution, by adopting a holistic approach was set up.
• The Prime Minister (Dr. Manmohan Singh now) is its exofficio chairman, and members including all cabinet ministers( Ministers of environment and forests, Finance, Urban Development, Water resources, Power, Science and Tech), Deputy chairman of Planning commission, Chief minsters of states through which Ganga passes(Uttarkand, U.P, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand), Minister of state (Environment and Forests).
• NGOs include Sankat Mochan, Tarun Bhagat Sangh (Rajendra singh famous, the Magsaysay awardee, Waterman of India).
• The authority aims at reduction pollution, controlling industrial pollutant inflow, essentially reducing BOD to 30mg/litre.

                             

                                        Eutrophication(Decay of Organic Elements)

                                       

What is BOD:

             Biochemical Oxygen Demand is measure used to indicate the level of organic pollutants present in water, usually to indicate the quality of water. It is the actual demand for oxygen in water body by aerobic bacteria present in them. 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, constraining the fishes and other living organisms inside them. Also the net demand for oxygen is proportional to number of Bacteria inside which in turn is proportional to the amount of organic pollutants present.