Reasons for Failure of Ganga Action Plan

Though Ganga Action Plan has been successful in some areas, it still failed to improve the situation to a great extent. Some of the reasons why Ganga Action Plan failed are:

• Lack of funds made it difficult to setup adequate sewage treatment infrastructure of the required capacity.
• Lack of community participation and awareness among the people was a major reason.
• Failure to comply with the regulations and continued release of the harmful wastes into the rivers by industries was also a reason.
• Lack of stringent controls and regulations was also a reason for its failure on the part of the government.
• The area of the Ganga drainage basin made it very difficult to map all the pollution sources.
• Lack of long term vision also led to the failure of Ganga Action Plan.

Ganga Action Plan was announced in the year 1985 by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. It was the first River Action Plan which was introduced to improve the quality of water by interception, diversion, and treatment of domestic sewage system. Ganga Action Plan was started on January 14th, 1986 during the tenure of the Rajiv Gandhi government to collect, reduce, reuse, and recycle the wastes in the Ganga River. GAP is 100% centrally sponsored. As Ganga became the 5th most polluted river in India, it was a great step to clean the Ganga River.

In this article, we shall discuss the Ganga Action Plan in detail.