Rivers will clean themselves: RK Sinha

Dolphin Man of India’ and Padma Shri winner Dr Ravindra Kumar Sinha, Vice Chancellor of Nalanda Open University, Patna, is a biologist and environmentalist by profession. Dr Sinha has made several scientific researches and conservation campaigns for thirty five years to save the dolphins of River Ganga from extinction and has also worked for ‘Damodar Bachao Aandolan’ in 2005 initiated by Saryu Roy, Minister Food Supply Department with Jharkhand Government. The noted environmentalist in a conversation with The Pioneer shared his experiences and ideas to save fast depleting nature.

What are the main causes for pollution of the rivers of Jharkhand?

The rivers of the State have seasonal flow, the major flow is only during monsoon season but, industrial waste and domestic sewage are directly dumped into the rivers throughout the year. In terms of pollution, the condition of Subernarekha River is better than Damodar. Damodar is the most polluted rivers in the State. As waste from coal factories are being dumped in the river.

How can the rivers like Damodar and Subernarekha be cleaned?

There is no need to clean the rivers. Rivers have resilience capacity to clean themselves. If they are not polluted by humans, they will keep themselves clean. The rivers of Jharkhand are tropical rivers and they get flooded during the monsoon season. The flow of rivers during monsoon takes all dirt with it and the rivers start to recover again.

What is the status of biodiversity into Damodar and Subernarekha?

Even in 2004 when River Damodar was extremely polluted there were thousands of marine species found in certain parts of the river. Now when conservation projects have been working since so long, the number of marine species must have improved.

What is the current status of pollution of river Ganga?

Till date, not even one domestic sewage drainage system of Patna has stopped dumping waste into Ganga. With increasing population in cities, the amount of waste dumped in River Ganga is also increasing. All solid waste and medical waste are directly dumped into the river which cause multi drug resistant bacteria and diseases caused due to these bacteria cannot be cured. The diseases caused due to these multi drug resistant bacteria will be a major threat to human health in near future.

What is the major threat to recovery of river Ganga?

The flow of River Ganga has reduced so much that the ecological integrity of River Ganga is on the verge of getting over. Reducing flow of River Ganga is a threat to its capacity to recover itself from the pollution and to the thousands of marine species inhabiting in the river.