Uttarakhand woman on a mission to protect Ganga, one village at a time

Twenty-four-year-old Radhika Chauhan from Tiloth village in Bhatwadi block grew up a few kilometers from one of river Ganga’s two main sources, Bhagirathi, flowing through the town of Uttarkashi. She also grew up watching villagers indiscriminately dump waste in it as if there was no other place to dispose of the waste.

That is because there wasn’t. Or at least there wasn’t a system in place to collect their everyday waste.

And there still isn’t.

“There are about 50-60 villages in Bhatwadi block, with nearly half of them close to Bhagirathi river. I have seen people throw waste in it all my life. The reason is only one: there is no waste collection facility in these villages,” she said.

A graduate and currently in the process of taking up a masters course, Chauhan isn’t interested in landing a traditional day job. She wants to do what she has been doing since July 2017 – work as a ‘prahari’ (protector) of river Ganga, as part of a group of self-motivated volunteers trained by the local administration to keep the river clean under the central government’s National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) project.

She is also one of the hundreds of volunteers enrolled with the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India’s (WII) Biodiversity Conservation and Ganga Rejuvenation project.

The dumping of waste in the river all these years has done the obvious. “Scientific studies tell us that the water in Ganga isn’t fit for either drinking or bathing. We are responsible for this pollution and only we can fix it,” Chauhan said.

A map charting the Uttar Pradesh-West Bengal stretch of the 2,525 km river, released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in August, showed most of the length dotted in red – to indicate that the water was unfit for drinking and bathing.

“A lot was done to collect waste from towns and cities but the waste from villages has remained unattended. That’s why people in villages along the river have no option but to dispose their garbage in it,” Chauhan said.

Connectivity is another major problem. Over a hundred villages in Uttarkashi district do not have proper roads connecting them to the nearest town, which in turn stops vehicles from coming and collecting the garbage.

The governments have not come up with alternative options, either, she said.

“As Ganga Prahari, I have been visiting these villages asking people to collect the waste and deliver it to the local body in the town. But people rarely want to make the effort,” she said.

A group of ‘bal praharis’ engaged in tree plantation and Ganga protection in Uttarkashi town of Uttarakhand. (HT Photo )

But with the help of other ‘praharis’ and the municipal staff, Chauhan has managed to ensure garbage collection from at least 10 villages which is then transported to the district headquarters in Uttarkashi town for dumping on a regular basis.

Additionally, she has created a force of ‘bal praharis’ comprising local kids below the age of 18 who are involved with the cleaning of the villages, the riverbeds and the planting of trees.

“It is my duty towards the people and my responsibility towards the environment that I should pursue the cause of Ganga rejuvenation. I would want to spend my entire life working as a protector of the Ganga,” Chauhan said.

Ruchi Badola, senior scientist at WII who is in charge of the project, said, “That’s the main objective of Ganga praharis. We want locals to understand the importance of ensuring the sanctity of the river. If everyone takes this goal seriously, then we will be able to achieve the mission of a Clean Ganga in no time.”

First Published: Oct 03, 2018 15:27 IST