Patna: All 472 villages in Bihar located along the banks of the Ganges have been freed from open-defecation. The initiative was part of the government’s move to keep India’s most spiritually sacred river free from pollution.
Authorities said around a million homes in 472 villages across 12 districts located along the banks of the Ganges lacked toilets at homes. This was a major challenge for the government to arrange toilets to all homes but it was achieved finally owing to the continuous efforts by the authorities.
“We are happy to inform that all the homes located on the banks of river Ganga have been arranged toilets. This is a significant step towards checking water pollution and restoring the pristine glory of the river,” rural development minister Shrawan Kumar told the media on Tuesday.
Open defecation by the villagers along the banks of the Ganges was one of the main causes of polluting India’s national river. Eventually, initiative was launched to tackle this problem by making available toilets to the inhabitants who would opt for open air defecation for lack of toilets at homes.
The Ganges which enters in Bihar at Buxur passes through 12 other districts before moving into West Bengal but most of the homes located on its bank didn’t have toilets earlier. It was here that that the authorities were forced to chalk out a plan and launched intensive drive to declare all of them as open-defecation free.
“We noticed the continuing practice of open defection by the villagers was one of the main reasons behind polluting the national river and decided to arrange toilets for them on priority basis. We encouraged the villagers to get a toilet at home and save the Ganges,” said an official.
“We thought we too must contribute significantly towards keeping the river clean when Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked of launching project to keep the Ganges free form pollution,” he added.
The increasing level of water pollution of the Ganges remains a matter of serious concern, and according to experts, its water is now unfit for both bathing and drinking.
“The bacterial load in the river water has alarmingly increased in the past five years, and as per our assessment, the faecal coliform count in the stretch of the Ganges in Bihar has currently gone six times higher than the permissible limit of 500 MPN (Most Probable Number) per 100ml,” says Professor Ravindra Kumar Sinha, a member of the National Ganga River Basin Authority which was established by the central government in February 2009 with the purpose to safeguard the drainage basin which feeds water into the Ganges by protecting it from pollution or overuse.
