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Ganga pollution: Govt warns of stringent action

Addressing a national dialogue here on industrial pollution in the Ganga, Union Water Resources minister Uma Bharati said that priority would be given for saving the holy river.

‘If I am asked (by a doctor) whether a mother or her baby should be saved during delivery, I would say both. But when a situation is arising where only one among them could be saved, then I would say the mother should be saved,’ she said in an apparent reference to the Ganga as the mother.

The minister's statement came after representatives of the industrial units on the banks of the river and its tributaries said that it would be difficult for them to comply with the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) instruction that implementation of Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) is a must in the sectors.

Representatives from the paper and pulp industries said that ‘it (implementation of ZLD) is not practical’ and argued that there is no Zero Liquid Discharge compliance even in the Europe and the United States.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, while interacting with reporters at the BJP headquarter here, said the government is committed to cleaning the Ganga.

He said that there are 764 polluting industries along the river which have been given notice to install sensors at affluent discharge points by March 31, next.
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