 "India’s pollution body now says water quality during Mahakumbh was fit for bathing")
A new report filed by India’s Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has revealed that the water quality during recently concluded Mahakumbh festival in the northern Uttar Pradesh (UP) state was fit for bathing.
UP’s Prayagraj city hosted the mammoth event, the largest religious festival on the face of the Earth, from January 13 to February 26.
But on February 17, the board informed the National Green Tribunal that water at several locations in the Ganga in Prayagraj had alarming levels of faecal coliform bacteria.
However, the board has now said a statistical analysis was necessitated because of “variability of data” in the samples collected from the same locations across different dates and on different locations on the same day. The board said because of this sample collection method, the data did not reflect the “overall river water quality throughout the river stretch”.
The new report, dated February 28, said that the board carried out water monitoring twice a week from January 12 onward, including on auspicious bathing days, at five locations along the Ganga River and two locations along the Yamuna River.
“There is a significant variability in the values on various parameters, viz pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and fecal coliform count (FC) for the samples taken from the same location on different dates. The values of the afore-mentioned parameters also vary at different locations for the samples collected on the same day,” the report said.
The report said that an expert committee examined the issue of “variability in data” and said that “the data represents a snapshot of water quality at a specific location and time and may vary significantly depending upon factors such as upstream anthropogenic activities (human actions), rate of flow, depth of sampling, time of sampling, river current and mixing of currents, sampling location and such other multiple factors”.
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More Shorts“As a result, these values reflect water quality parameters at the exact time and place from where these water samples were collected, and may not fully represent the overall characteristics of the river, therefore, not necessarily reflecting the overall river water quality throughout the river stretch,” it said.
The report stated that due to variability in water quality, a statistical analysis was conducted on data from various monitoring locations. From January 12 to February 22, water quality was assessed at 10 “mass bathing” locations, with a total of 20 rounds of monitoring completed.
“It is submitted that as per the above-mentioned statistical analysis, the median value (central tendency of the data) of pH, DO, BOD and FC for the monitored stretches is within the respective criteria/permissible limits,” the report noted.
The report found that the median fecal coliform (FC) level was 1,400 units per 100 ml, well within the permissible limit of 2,500. Dissolved oxygen (DO) was measured at 8.7 mg/l, exceeding the required minimum of 5 mg/l, while the biological oxygen demand (BOD) was 2.56 mg/l, staying within the acceptable limit of 3 mg/l or lower.
The matter will now be heard by the tribunal on April 7.
(With inputs from agencies)
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