More than Rs 43,000 crore has been allocated to the Centre’s flagship Namami Gange programme, but the Ganga continues to grapple with sewage discharge, industrial effluents and agricultural pollution, with only a small fraction of the river showing sustained improvement in water quality.

An investigation report by Bloomberg News, published on November 6, based on a decade of satellite imagery and scientific water testing, has found that much of the river remains heavily polluted, more than ten years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made its cleaning a major electoral promise.

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, whose findings were cited in the investigation, also found contamination in river water, irrigation channels and groundwater around Kanpur and Varanasi. The findings raise fresh questions about the effectiveness of the government's massive investment in the river-cleaning mission.

Bloomberg journalists Shruti Srivastava, Krishna Karra and Lou Del Bello examined nearly 2,000 kilometres of the Ganga using satellite images from the European Union's Copernicus Sentinel-2 and NASA's Landsat programmes. Their analysis tracked water turbidity, algae growth associated with sewage and fertiliser runoff, and surface temperatures.

The findings showed that only around 10% of the river had experienced sustained improvement in water clarity. Another 20% showed improvement during the dry season but deteriorated after the monsoon, while approximately a quarter was becoming increasingly muddy even during dry months, when pollutants are more concentrated. In the post-monsoon period, nearly 80% of the river was found to be getting muddier.

The investigation also cautioned against treating clearer water as evidence of reduced pollution. In nearly half of the stretches where water clarity had improved, satellite observations indicated increased algae growth during the dry season. Excessive algae can deplete dissolved oxygen and threaten aquatic ecosystems.

Since satellite observations cannot identify chemical contaminants, heavy metals or disease-causing pathogens, Bloomberg commissioned IIT Kharagpur scientists to conduct laboratory tests at 12 locations around Kanpur and Varanasi, covering the river, irrigation channels and groundwater sources.

In Kanpur, all the Ganga water samples exceeded the government's prescribed biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) limit for bathing water, recording levels approximately 1.5 times higher than the permissible benchmark. The readings were more than double the stricter standard for water intended as a drinking source.

The samples were collected during the monsoon, when increased river flows dilute pollutants by five to 20 times. Consequently, pollution concentrations during the dry season could be several times higher, said Abhijit Mukherjee, a professor at IIT Kharagpur whose laboratory conducted the tests.

Contamination was also detected beyond the river. An irrigation channel carrying treated tannery effluents mixed with domestic wastewater recorded chemical oxygen demand of 148 milligrams per litre, indicating severe organic pollution. Groundwater testing in Jana village revealed fluoride concentrations more than four times the permissible limit, while nitrate levels were over twice the prescribed limit.

The scale of pollution stands in sharp contrast to the financial resources committed to the cleanup programme. By the end of September, approximately Rs 43,060 crore had been allocated to Namami Gange, although only slightly more than half of the amount had been spent. Bureaucratic hurdles, the hybrid financing structure and delays in implementation by local authorities have contributed to the slow utilisation of funds.

The allocation is more than ten times the amount authorised by successive governments for Ganga-cleaning initiatives between 1985 and 2014.

Government data cited in the investigation showed that the Ganga basin generates approximately 12 billion litres of sewage every day, while completed treatment projects have the capacity to process only about a third of that volume. Cities situated along the river's main course discharge nearly 3 billion litres of sewage daily, against an installed treatment capacity of approximately 1 billion litres.

Industrial pollution, meanwhile, accounts for around 20% of the total pollution by volume. However, industrial waste is often more toxic and persistent, with major concentrations around Kanpur and along the Ramganga and Kali tributaries, where tanneries, distilleries, paper mills and sugar factories operate.

Enforcement against polluting industries has also remained limited. In Bihar, authorities last year issued orders seeking Rs 8.2 crore in compensation from 10 treatment plants found violating environmental standards, according to a document submitted to the National Green Tribunal.

Experts cited in the Bloomberg investigation identified institutional weaknesses and poor coordination between different levels of government as major obstacles to cleaning the river.

Arvind Subramanian, a former chief economic adviser, said India performs well in executing visible infrastructure projects that attract political attention, but struggles with initiatives requiring sustained coordination between the Union government, state administrations and local bodies.
Ambika Vishwanath of the Kubernein Initiative pointed out that Namami Gange was the first initiative to approach the entire river basin as a single unit, but was launched without comprehensive baseline data. “We’re trying to solve a problem without the correct information,” she said.

Srinivas Chokkakula of the Centre for Policy Research said the programme was attempting to address decades of accumulated infrastructure and governance failures. He stressed that financial investment alone would not suffice without improvements in urban administration, local institutional capacity and regulatory monitoring.

Union Water Resources Minister C.R. Patil, however, told Bloomberg that the government remained committed to improving the river's condition and hoped to make the Ganga fit for bathing before the 2029 general election.

Patil said the government had decided in September to overhaul the mission. The proposed changes include using drone surveys to map drains along the river's entire course, from its source to West Bengal, and redirecting smaller drains into larger channels connected to sewage treatment plants.

He also said newer sewage treatment technologies would make it possible to construct facilities at lower costs and on smaller plots of land. However, he acknowledged that cleaning the river would also require changes in people's behaviour.

The latest findings echo concerns raised when Namami Gange completed ten years in 2024. In a response to the Lok Sabha on February 8, 2024, the Union government disclosed that 457 projects worth Rs 38,438.05 crore had been undertaken under the programme up to December 31, 2023. Of these, only 280 had been completed and made operational, according to a report published by The Wire in 2024.

Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People told Bloomberg that the programme had prioritised financial allocations, infrastructure and technology without adequately addressing governance failures, particularly the question of whether sewage treatment plants were actually functioning.

The latest investigation suggests that despite a decade of substantial public spending and infrastructure development, the gap between the government's stated ambitions and the actual condition of the Ganga remains considerable.

The challenge now extends beyond building treatment facilities to ensuring that they function effectively, pollution regulations are enforced and sewage discharge is brought under control.