Clean Ganga mission: Blueprint in works to implement Internet of things devices to check pollution

Moneycontrol News 

A non-profit engineering institution has created a blueprint to implement internet of things devices which will help check and tabulate data on the pollution levels of Ganga river.

Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) has created the blueprint in association with their IoT panel to curb pollution and improve water level.

Vivek Mehrotra, chairman of IET India IoT Panel’s Ganga Rejuvenation told the Economic Times that Ganga has been neglected to a great extent. It is majorly over-exploited as with local industries releasing toxic chemical waste into the river basin along with sewage from households. There are laws in place to check pollution but most of these industries are unregulated in terms of the chemicals released into the river. Then you have human and industrial waste along with excessive fertilisers which are not used by farmers, which is released into Ganga.”

He added that laws to regulate industry wastes into the river is seldom effective as toxic waste from the local industries is unregulated. Additionally, the river has to bear the burden of human waste and fertilizers washed off farmer's fields along its 2,525 km long stretch.

Mehrotra also noted that there's been considerable river bed depletion due to the forceful diversion of the river's course and unabated construction along the banks.

The new IoT devices across Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh will check pollution levels as the IoT panel looks forward to closely working with technology companies, universities and the government. The data collected could be used by the Indian government to implement policies of cleaning up the river.

"IoT is just not for collecting data but about analysing the data and give aforesaid results. Our devices can monitor the situation across the length of the river and then share the data with local authorities and universities to work on it," he added.

Mehrotra declared that a proof of concept (POC) will be run in Varanasi for six months to document the progress and future implementation will be decided accordingly.

Even as Nitin Gadkari took charge as the Water Resources Minister replacing Uma Bharti, most of the work in Clean Ganga initiative remains shelved. The National Green Tribunal had issued directives to various states through which the river flows to check pollution by declaring some areas around Ganga as "no development zones". In vain, the inaction led to the NGT issuing notices against the governments of Haryana and Rajasthan.