A DIP in river Ganga flowing in this holy town may now leave devouts infected with a host of diseases with pollution monitors painting an alarming picture of the state of the river.
According to data provided by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board and Ganga Research Laboratory situated at the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, the level of pollution in the river has reached alarming proportions.
Experts say the Ganga water at Varanasi is at present not fit for bathing and even for agricultural purposes. For drinking purposes it has been not used for years now.
However, top sources at the Ganga Action Plan phase-I unit at Varanasi claim that Ganga water here is fit for bathing and is better than the quality of river water in Kanpur and Allahabad.
As per the Swatcha Ganga Research Laboratory of the Sankat Mochan Foundation, an NGO at Varanasi, while the level of fecal coliform present in water should be much below 5,000 per liter for drinking purposes, less than 50,000 for bathing and below 500,000 per litre for agricultural use, the present level of coliform in Ganga here has reached an alarming level of 4,90,000 to 21 lakh per litre on different ghats.
Professor Uday Kant Choudhary, an expert in river dynamics and coordinator of the Ganga Research Laboratory at the IT-BHU, said besides the level of fecal coliform, the water quality was mainly dependent upon oxygen content and its oxygen retention power and as per the recent data on both of these accounts, the Ganga water was not worth drinking on any of the world-famous Ganga ghats here.
As per the laboratory’s investigations, the dissolved oxygen in Ganga water at various ghats here varies from 3 to 5 parts per million(PPM) while it should be not less that 6 to 7 PPM.