Click to play videoKolkata: CNN-IBN-Outlook State of the Environment Poll has found that 77 per cent people have voted cleaning of rivers by government as the top priority.
The findings are especially significant in Kolkata as its main river Hooghly is congested with solid waste and effluents.
It is said that the character of a city is best judged by how well it maintains its sea or river front.
For environment activist Subhash Dutta it's been a lonely battle fought by the Green Bench at Kolkata High Court, trying to keep up a brave and a clean riverfront.
"It is being fouled institutionally and individually. Ninety per cent of industrial and untreated sewer being dumped in it is only making the river unholy," Dutta laments.
The romantic image of Hooghly is dumped rapidly as it gets fouled by 860 million litre of untreated sewage daily through sewer outlets flowing into the river.
Ganga Monitoring Committee member of the Environment Department of West Bengal government Biswajit Mukherjee says, "Twenty-Twenty five years is nothing to curb pollution. How could I solve all the problems?"
The city believes Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) and its municipalities take care of most of the sewage disposal. They remain shockingly unaware that they too have a liberal hand in its abuse.
Forty-four municipalities have been set up along the bank while 15 Sewage Treatment Plants that have been set up lie unused. With only 42 per cent coverage area outlined, the house-to-house connection to STP's stands at 10 per cent.
With so much pollution the water of Hooghly is unfit for human consumption.
"This is our fight and we will fight to restore it to its past glory. It's a social battle, a legal battle, an environment battle and an all-round battle. When the battle will be won, the river will come to its original self," Dutta adds.
Even as the city learns to live with unholy proportions of contaminated waters, the holy river itself silently weaves its way out of Bengal in the hope of a cleaner tomorrow.
(With inputs from Debasish Nandy)
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