According to a 2022 CPCB report, Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati river has been given the second spot on the list of India’s most polluted rivers. In view of these latest findings, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has also decided to move the Sabarmati river to the critically polluted “Category-I”.
Things have been getting worse in the past five years
In August of 2021, the Gujarat High Court took suo moto cognizance to limit levels of pollution in several rivers in the state. In addition to that, the court also appointed a joint task force comprising of nine members who went on to intervene on numerous occasions in order to rectify the alarming rates of pollution in rivers in Gujarat, including the Sabarmati.
Notwithstanding the rising concern and efforts that followed, the pollution levels in Sabarmati river, which had been deteriorating for the last five years, have continued to worsen. In fact, the stretch of Sabarmati from Gandhinagar’s Raysan to Dholka’s Vautha area reported a BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) of a whopping 292 ml/liter. It must be noted that the BOD indicates the levels of organic pollution in rivers.
What’s polluting the Sabarmati?
The above-mentioned polluted stretch of Sabarmati has a number of textile manufacturing units near it along with facilities that manufacture chemicals. The discharge of untreated sewage by these units is believed to be the biggest cause of the worsening pollution levels in one of the most prominent westward flowing rivers in India.
Apart from Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati river, the CPCB has listed 311 stretches from 279 rivers across India that have reported alarming levels of BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), with blatant dumping of untreated sewage being identified as the major cause in most cases.
