The 2,500 km river stretching from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal is full of industrial effluent and untreated sewage.
The government has been given two weeks to explain how it plans to clean up the Ganga, with irate Supreme Court judges asking, "Are you saving the Holy River? You are showing no urgency in this matter, only in other matters. " (
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That remark was seen as a jibe at the government's attempts to change the law on how judges are appointed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected in May to Parliament from the 3,000-year-old riverside city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. "Now it is time to do my bit for Maa Ganga," he said after his victory in a speech from one of the ghats, "Maa Ganga is waiting for her son to free her from pollution." (
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The Supreme Court has been dealing since 1985 with a Public Interest Litigation or PIL that demands the restoration of a river that has been reduced to a sewage line. (
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Mr Modi's government announced an additional Rs 2,040 crores for a new "Ganga Mission" in its first budget .
Though Hindus bathe in the Ganga in an act of ritual purification, the 2,500 km river stretching from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal is full of industrial effluent and untreated sewage, its banks strewn with garbage. (
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In June, Uma Bharti, Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation said she needed a few weeks to come up with detailed proposals for the project, dubbed "Ganga Manthan" -
manthan signifies a deep contemplation and churning of facts that leads to enlightenment. (
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India's first highly-publicised effort to clean its most sacred river was in 1986, when the Ganga Action Plan was launched. (
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Environmental activists estimate thousands of crores have been poured into clean-up efforts over the last three decades with few, if any, results.