Toxic Ganges adds to spread of drug-resistant bacteria

[RisingShiningSuperpower]

Modi-ji and his capable ministers are hard at work on a plan to clean up the Ganges. I'm confident that they will succeed splendidly!


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/15af211a-b2c6-11e4-a058-00144feab7de.html#axzz3RfkCkk7s

Toxic Ganges adds to spread of drug-resistant bacteria
Antibiotic resistance, a factor in hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide each year, is spreading in south Asia via the Ganges riverand other water sources and becoming an increasingly grave international threat, according to scientists and doctors.

Levels of a highly resistant bacterial gene known as NDM-1, which makes several life-threatening infections immune to drug treatments, surge in the relatively clean waters of the upper Ganges when Hindu pilgrims from India’s cities travel there en masse to worship at sites such as Rishikesh and Haridwar, according to one study.

Such research confirms that antibiotic resistance genes, which in developed countries are a particular risk for hospital patients exposed to other sick people, can be spread easily through water in places with poor sanitation.

“The only route it can enter the water is through faecal contamination,” said TR Sreekrishnan, a biochemist at the Indian Institute of Technology and an author of the report. “If you do not properly treat the waste before it is discharged into the rivers you are not only contaminating the water, you are also assisting the proliferation of antibiotic resistance.”

NDM-1, or New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, was discovered seven years ago in India in a patient infected with Klebsiella pneumoniae. It has since been found in New Delhi’s drinking water, and spread around the world, including to the US and UK.

Health experts believe that the rise in drug-resistant bacteria in India is caused not only by poor sanitation but also the widespread over-prescription of antibiotics.

The two factors combined “make India a perfect system for the spread of antibiotic resistance”, said David Livermore, professor of medical microbiology at the UK’s University of East Anglia. “India and Pakistan are the first countries where this kind of resistance has got real traction,” he added. A possibly more dangerous variant, known as NDM-4, has also been detected in sewage in a hospital in Aligarh, north India.

Tim Walsh, a microbiology professor at Cardiff university who first drew attention to NDM-1 in 2010, said India’s political and medical establishment were in denial about the scale of the problem. One reason, he suggested, was that hospitals do not want to deter the hundreds of thousands of “medical tourists” who visit India each year.

Prof Walsh, who said he is no longer welcomed in India, has studied patients at a public hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, where a quarter had picked up NDM-1 before admission.

More than 58,000 infants in India die each year from infections made resistant to antibiotics by genes such as NDM-1, and a further 200,000 lives are lost annually in the US, China and Europe alone. “This problem is about to get a lot worse,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, vice-president for research and policy at the Public Health Foundation of India. “It would be hard to culture [bacteria from] river water in India and not find antibiotic resistance genes.”

Jim O’Neill, the economist leading an official UK review of antimicrobial resistance, will visit India next month. He has warned that drug-resistant infections will cause 10m deaths a year by 2050 — as many as cancer — unless the world takes preventive action.

David Graham, an environmental engineering professor at Newcastle University who has also studied NDM-1 in India, warned that the crisis would worsen unless the issue of water pollution was addressed. In an article he co-authored in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, Prof Graham concluded: “Unless such a perspective is adopted, we will almost certainly enter a ‘post-antibiotic age’ that many doomsayers are predicting”.

 

[Icewolf]

Fake news as Ganga has cleanest water in the world.

 

[RisingShiningSuperpower]

Fake news as Ganga has cleanest water in the world.

It's clean and nutritious spiritually, but from a human health perspective, the river needs to be rehabilitated.

I'm confident Modi-ji and his brilliant ministers will execute their plan successfully. Ganges will be the cleanest river by 2020!

 

[Hindustani78]

Central Government has took many projects related to Ganga River.

Work is going on around Ganga River, Some recent Pictures.

Varanasi's Assi ghat

Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with the officials during a cleanliness drive at Assi Ghat.

 

[RisingShiningSuperpower]

Central Government has took many projects related to Ganga River.

Work is going on around Ganga River, Some recent Pictures.

Varanasi's Assi ghat

Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with the officials during a cleanliness drive at Assi Ghat.

This is indeed laudable.

I am confident that under Modi-ji's brilliant leadership, Ganges will become the most pristine river in the world by 2020!

 

[Hindustani78]

This is indeed laudable.

I am confident that under Modi-ji's brilliant leadership, Ganges will become the most pristine river in the world by 2020!

Yes, i do agree with this .

14th Feb 2015
NCC (National Cadet Corps) cadets take part in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Namami Gange Project for clean Ganga river at Sangam in Allahabad.

 

[Hindustani78]

Will clean Ganga in 2 years: Uma Bharti - The Economic Times
By PTI | 15 Feb, 2015, 06.51PM IST

HOSHANGABAD: Ganga will be cleaned in a "qualitatively manner" within next two years, Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti said here today.

"The plan for cleaning Ganga was made in 1985 but nothing happened in that direction in the last 29 years. As per my plan, we will clean Ganga in a qualitative manner in two years," Bharti said.


She was addressing the concluding session of a three-day long River Festival organised by 'Narmada Samagra' NGO at the confluence of Narmada and Tawa rivers at Bandrabhan in Hoshangabad district.

She said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given her a free hand in cleaning the sacred river and all ministries are with her department for the purpose.

Bharti said her ministry was taking all possible measures for the conservation of rivers in the country and efforts are being made to ensure that no river is dried up.

"Rivers will be inter-linked to ensure continuous flow of water in them, like linking of Ken-Betwa-Narmada-Kshipra rivers in Madhya Pradesh," she said.


Bharti said schemes would be framed taking into consideration the geographical and other attributes of each and every river in the country.

Praising 'Narmada Samagra' head and Rajya Sabha MP, Anil Madhav Dave, the minister said that under his leadership, the NGO ensured a continuous flow of water by involving people and other stake-holders living around the holy river.


She said she has named Ganga cleaning campaign as 'Ganga Samagra Abhiyan' because she was impressed with the work being done by the NGO on this front.

For making rivers pollution-free, people will have to ensure cleanliness and greenery along the periphery of rivers by planting trees.

Dave said a total of 1123 representatives working for the conservation of 310 rivers in the country took part in the river festival and shared their experiences.

He said next such event will be organised in 2018.

 

[jamahir]

has the government looked at banning people from burning bodies on ganga's banks and letting them float?? there are pictures to show the reality of the "famous" varanasi ghats.

ganga is flithy and polluted because of the cultural traditions associated with it... so the problem is the people and cultural elements... empty the "cultural" towns around ganga, doing some initial scrubbing of the river and the banks, and in a two years ganga will be clean.

 

[Hindustani78]

has the government looked at banning people from burning bodies on ganga's banks and letting them float?? there are pictures to show the reality of the "famous" varanasi ghats.

ganga is flithy and polluted because of the cultural traditions associated with it... so the problem is the people and cultural elements... empty the "cultural" towns around ganga, doing some initial scrubbing of the river and the banks, and in a two years ganga will be clean.

Work is being done around Ganga and money is pouring and committees have been formed.


‘Popularise use of electric crematorium near Ganga’ | The Asian Age
Dec 26, 2014 |

To get rid of pollution on the banks of the Ganga, a parliamentary committee has observed that the water resources ministry and state governments should popularise the practice of electric crematorium in the Ganga basin states to put an end to disposal of unburnt or half-burnt dead.

The standing committee on water resources also asked the ministry to develop improvised wood-based crematorium requiring smaller quantity of wood, keeping the social sensitivity in mind.

Various studies have in the past suggested that the practice of disposal of unburnt or half-burnt dead bodies was one of the major reasons for pollution on the banks of the Ganga.

“The committee, therefore, recommend that efforts should be initiated by the ministry and allied implementing agencies including state governments, to popularise the practice of electric crematorium in the Ganga basin states,” the parliamentary standing committee on water resources headed by Hukum Singh said.

It also asked the ministry to expedite necessary action to develop improvised wood-based crematorium requiring small quantity of wood, keeping the social sensitivity in mind.

The committee also asked the ministry to initiate urgent action in conjunction with all stakeholders to ensure that the short-term action plan related to Integrated Ganga Conservation Mission is implemented within three years.

The panel also asked the ministry to ensure that government sanction is granted for implementation of the programme that seeks to make 1,649 panchayats in Ganga banks free from open defecation.

The government is mulling installation of real-time effluent quality monitoring systems by grossly polluting industries located in the river basin and development of a roadmap for achieving zero-liquid discharge from the polluting industries into the holy river.



Ghaziabad NGO to Build Electric Crematoria on Ganga Banks -The New Indian Express

On the issue of cleaning the Ganga river, the meeting also decided to ask people to cremate their dead relatives in modern electric crematoria, said V.K. Agrawal of NGO Paramarth Seva Samiti.

UPPCL superintending engineer S.B. Yadav said the company will provide power supply, and the infrastructure for each cremation centre would cost over Rs.25 lakh.

The company will install a power transformer at each cremation centre.

 

[jamahir]

Various studies have in the past suggested that the practice of disposal of unburnt or half-burnt dead bodies was one of the major reasons for pollution on the banks of the Ganga.

It also asked the ministry to expedite necessary action to develop improvised wood-based crematorium requiring small quantity of wood, keeping the social sensitivity in mind.

On the issue of cleaning the Ganga river, the meeting also decided to ask people to cremate their dead relatives in modern electric crematoria, said V.K. Agrawal of NGO Paramarth Seva Samiti.

even if one wood piece is used to burn a body in electric crematorium, there are other pollutants like flowers around that ash pot, the ash itself, the pot itself etc... all of that must be scientifically changed.

The panel also asked the ministry to ensure that government sanction is granted for implementation of the programme that seeks to make 1,649 panchayats in Ganga banks free from open defecation.

other than defecation, millions of pilgrims and town-dwellers bathe in the river... they must be barred from doing so... they must be told that they contribute to global pollution rather than collecting any divine points.

there is an entire parasitic capitalist economy around those ghats, which must be removed.

--------

overall, the ganga river should become like a beautified lake in the city... it is either this or it becomes an exercise in bureaucracy.

 

[kawaraj]

Modi cabinet shall address these problems than any bragging of economic figure game.

 

[Hindustani78]

Not in use: An inside view of the gas-based crematorium at Vidya Nagar in Shivamogga.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...crematorium-in-shivamogga/article18469408.ece

Corporation decides to redesign burning chamber at an additional cost of ₹14 lakh
The gas-based crematorium in Shivamogga city, constructed in 2014, has over the years only seen an average of three bodies being cremated a month. It is kept locked on most days. In contrast, the old firewood crematorium in the same complex by the banks of the Tunga river witnesses about 250 cremations a month. This despite the fact that cremation in the gas-based facility is performed free of charge, and there is a fee of ₹1,800 levied for the latter.

The hitch arises because the burning chamber is designed in such a way that the head of the deceased faces north, which is deemed scripturally inappropriate for apara karmas (final rites). Priests have often refused to perform the last rites for this reason, and it is only the poorest of the poor or unclaimed bodies that get cremated at the gas-based facility here.

Now, the corporation has decided to redesign the burning chamber in accordance with traditional beliefs at an additional cost of ₹14 lakh. The project originally cost ₹80 lakh — ₹50 lakh to construct the building and ₹30 lakh for the machinery and installation.

P.V. Vishwanath, a member of the Shivamogga corporation, told The Hindu that the gas-based crematorium was commissioned as part of an ecological initiative to reduce the use of firewood. “But because of the design issue, people are cremating with firewood on the same premises, even though they have to pay for it,” he said.

Mr. Vishwanath said that “being a democratic institution,” the Shivmogga corporation decided to heed the sentiments of the public and tweak its design at an additional cost. “The opinion of scriptural experts and priests who perform apara karma will be taken while altering the design.”

Mullai Muhilan, commissioner of the corporation, said the proposal to redesign the burning chamber had received administrative nod, and work would be carried out by Nirmiti Kendra, the civil construction arm of the government.

 

[tw00tw00]

http://www.reuters.com/article/india-ganges-idUSKBN1780ZC

EXCLUSIVE - India's Ganges clean-up in a shambles, Modi intervenes
By Tommy Wilkes and Aditya Kalra | NEW DELHI/KANPUR, India

Fri Apr 7, 2017 | 3:55pm EDT

NEW DELHI/KANPUR, India's $3 billion plan to clean the holy Ganges river is badly behind schedule with large stretches contaminated by toxic waste and sewage, forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene, according to government officials and documents seen by Reuters.

Much of the money allocated to the project, a flagship initiative for Modi's Hindu nationalist government, remains unspent, say officials from the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), a government body overseeing the project.

In one slide of a presentation to a top Modi aide in late January, NMCG officials marked almost the entire length of the river within three big circles to highlight "pollution in river Ganga".

A 2018 deadline to clean the river is "impossible", one NMCG official said. "If we want to meet the 2018 deadline, we should have commissioned plants to treat half the sewage already," he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the record.

Over three-quarters of the sewage generated in the towns and cities of India's crowded northern plains flows untreated into the 2,525-km (1,570-mile) Ganges, according to the presentation, which has not been made public.

State administrations have struggled to find land for new treatment plants, while complex tendering processes have put bidders off pitching for new clean-up projects, officials said.

The Ganges is worshipped by Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of India's 1.3 billion people. They call it Ganga Mata, or mother Ganga, and believe a dip in the river absolves a lifetime of sins. Hindus also cremate the bodies of their loved ones on its banks and strew the ashes in the river.

Recognising that the clean-up mission is in a shambles, Modi has decided to take personal control, a senior NMCG official said. The clean-up drive is important as Modi wants to show tangible improvement before the next election in 2019.

His principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, has met NMCG officials almost monthly since November, demanding to see updates on the project's progress, the NMCG official said. Misra did not respond to messages and calls seeking comment.

Modi, voted to power in 2014, committed $3.06 billion for the clean-up in the five years to 2020 but the January presentation showed just $205 million had been spent between April 2015 and March 2017.

India's water resources minister, Uma Bharti, who is responsible for overseeing the clean-up and announced the 2018 deadline, did not respond to requests for comment.

"I have lost hope," said Rakesh Jaiswal, head of a small Ganges-focused environmental group in the industrial city of Kanpur since 1993. "There has been nothing on the ground."

SEWAGE, POLLUTION

India's top environmental court in February ruled "not a single drop of the Ganga has been cleaned so far", accusing the government of wasting public money.

The river stretches from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal and is a water source for 400 million people. But it is also the destination for waste produced by 760 industrial units described by the NMCG as "grossly polluting".

In addition, the NMCG presentation showed, about 4,800 million litres of sewage from 118 towns and cities flows into the Ganges every day. The functioning capacity to treat sewage is 1,017 million litres per day (MLD).

According to official data, the Modi administration has cleared the construction of plants to treat an additional 933 MLD, and the rehabilitation of existing plants with a capacity to clean an additional 1,091 MLD.

Of these, plants treating less than 160 MLD have been completed, but it is unclear if they have started operations.

The problems are striking in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh state: toxic pollution from tanneries operating in the industrial city flows down slum-lined open sewers into the Ganges.

Of the 456 tanneries in the state that back onto the river, most of them in Kanpur, authorities have shut down just 14, according to the government presentation.

The government has also lagged on the simpler tasks of cleaning the ghats, the riverside steps where devotees assemble to bathe, and the sites on the banks where bodies are cremated.

 

[Avon]

They way they are trying to clean the river it may take decades. This is one issue where modi gov seems lost.

 

[Jlaw]

They way they are trying to clean the river it may take decades. This is one issue where modi gov seems lost.

Raja Modi promised 2020.