Newsletter No. 60; IRBMS and habitat diversity, loss of water bodies and wetlands, loss of floodplain vegetation and biodiversity … and loss of ecosystem functions�, the report said.
Both the Modi-led national government and the Delhi administration, normally at loggerheads, had supported Shankar�s event, and the Delhi water minister, Kapil Mishra, continued to defend it.
Shankar said in a statement the report was �completely flawed, unscientific and biased�.
Already tens millions of rupees have been spent in the past two decades to clean the river, with little improvement in water quality. Experts blame poor coordination between agencies and said that too much water is being diverted for human use.
Maharashtra’ s polluting factories are making its rivers the filthiest in India
People from Dhabol Khadi village, in the coastal district of Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, used to catch 25 different kinds of fish from Vashisthi,- the local river. But for the past 25 years, factories in the neighbouring industrial belt of Lote Parshuram have been dumping untreated effluents in the river, destroying all living forms in it. The fish are dying and the river no longer offers a livelihood
option to the fishermen in the village.
The officials of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board as well as the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation which maintains the belt remain indifferent. Maharashtra, the state with India�s biggest economy, also has the highest number of polluted river stretches in the country. And, at 161, it also has the most number of cities and towns along polluted stretches, according to a 2015 report of the Central Pollution Control Board. Of the 156 locations where the Central Pollution Control Board has set up its monitoring units on the 49 rivers and tributaries in the state, 153 do not meet the water quality criteria, according to the Board. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board has issued over five thousands of show-cause notices to erring factories between 2011 and 2017. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board has limited powers to discipline these units, and hence it is unable to contain river pollution.
[ Source: http:// www. thebetterindia. com ]
Half of India’ s rivers are polluted, says Govt. Report
An assessment by the Central Pollution Control Board reports that the number of rivers defined as �polluted� in India has more than doubled in the last five years from 121 to 275. The report found the
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Integrated River Basin Management Society