Ganga and Yamuna are Dying

G T T

The Kumbh is held in every three years on the banks of different rivers—at Prayagraj on confluence of Ganga and Yamuna, at Ujjain on the banks of Shipra River, at Nasik on the banks of Godavari River and at Haridwar on the banks of the Ganga. The rivers have a special significance for the Kumbh. Further, the Kumbh is held in a particular planetary constellation. The special powers of the Kumbh are released by the combination of charged water of the rivers and a particular planetary constellation.

Prayagraj is located on the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna rivers. This is the only Kumbh that is held at the confluence of the rivers. It is the most important of the four Kumbhs. The Ganga and Yamuna bring different spiritual charges from the Himalayas and their mingling at Prayagraj creates even stronger spiritual charge. It is as if two married sisters meet after twenty years and they feel a sense of energy meeting with each other. So the true value of the Kumbh depends upon the bringing of the spiritual charges by Ganga and Yamuna from the Himalayas.

At present the spiritual charges are being restricted in two ways. First impact is that the spiritually charged water from the Himalayas is not reaching Prayagraj during most of the year. The water of Ganga is being almost totally removed at Haridwar and Narora.

The Ganga almost becomes dry at downstream of Narora and the water reaching Prayagraj is mostly from Kali and other rivers that join the Ganga downstream of Narora. Similarly the Yamuna water reaching at Prayagraj is mostly from Chambal River that joins the Yamuna downstream of Hathnikund. In other words Prayagraj today is, truly speaking, a confluence of Kali and Chambal rivers, not a confluence of Ganga and Yamuna rivers.

The Government proposes to release additional water from Tehri Dam to make available water of the Bhagirathi River at Prayagraj during the Kumbh. The Ganga has two tributaries—The Bhagirathi and the Alaknanda. The Tehri Dam is constructed on the Bhagirathi River. But problem is that the spiritual charges of Bhagirathi are being destroyed because of the flow of the water through turbines and because it is kept stagnant in the Tehri Reservoir. For this reason tradition says that only flowing water is to be worshiped.

The water of the Tehri Dam has become anaerobic which means that there is no oxygen in that water. Methane emissions are taking place from Tehri which are indicator that the water has no oxygen left in it. Such water even if it reaches at Prayagraj it will hardly carry spiritual charges because it is oxygen-dead water. Similarly the water of Alaknanda passes through Vishnu-prayag and Srinagar dams and spiritual charges are lost when the water crashes against the turbine blades.

Similarly the spiritual charges of water of the Bhagirathi goes through the turbines of Tehri, water of Alaknanda goes through the turbines of Vishnu Prayag and Srinagar, and Yamuna goes through the Ichari hydropower project. Therefore the water that is reaching at Prayagraj is devoid of spiritual charges.

The solution is that the government must remove the Tehri Dam and put more effort in ground water recharge in Ganga Plains. The capacity of Tehri dam is 2.6 billion cubic meters whereas the amount that can be stored in ground water aquifers in Uttar Pradesh is about 70 billion cubic meters. One can store 30 times more water than the Tehri in the plains of Uttar Pradesh. If the authorities do this then the flow of water from these ground water aquifers into the Ganga will replenish the Ganga and Yamuna and there will be water in the rivers at Prayagraj.

If the ground water in the aquifers on the banks of the river is full with rain water then some amount of the water seeps into the river which is called "natural discharge" and this water revives the river. Similarly one must remove the Hathnikund barrage and make sure that spiritually charged water of Yamuna reaches Prayagraj. Political parties and social activists are making a great mistake by not telling these facts to the pilgrims and there is need to take corrective action as soon as possible on this.

Frontier
Vol. 51, No.36, Mar 10 - 16, 2019