This is not rocket science. It appears that the strategy for cleaning the Ganga is being rolled out by amateurs with little practical experience. The process was well understood in the UK by the turn of the century (1900) and has been exported all over the world. Local collection systems are intercepted before they enter a watercourse and end up at a treatment facility which then discharges treated effluent to a watercourse or to agriculture. The gap in incomplete systems, which results in the discharge of untreated sewage is often only exceeded by the lack of maintenance once the systems have been constructed. There is another fundamental issue which does not appear to have been addressed - to start at the top or the bottom? Most projects start at the bottom of the system as that is where the biggest sources of pollution are situated. However this means that no improvement is apparent until the whole project is complete. Starting at the top results in rapid improvement of the upper reaches which are apparent and serve as a spur to progress. The contrast between the improved upstream river and the unimproved stretch downstream serves to highlight the main sources of the pollution at the margin and what needs to be done next.

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This is not rocket science. It appears that the strategy for cleaning the Ganga is being rolled out by amateurs with little practical experience. The process was well understood in the UK by the turn of the century (1900) and has been exported all over the world. Local collection systems are intercepted before they enter a watercourse and end up at a treatment facility which then discharges treated effluent to a watercourse or to agriculture. The gap in incomplete systems, which results in the discharge of untreated sewage is often only exceeded by the lack of maintenance once the systems have been constructed.

There is another fundamental issue which does not appear to have been addressed - to start at the top or the bottom? Most projects start at the bottom of the system as that is where the biggest sources of pollution are situated. However this means that no improvement is apparent until the whole project is complete. Starting at the top results in rapid improvement of the upper reaches which are apparent and serve as a spur to progress. The contrast between the improved upstream river and the unimproved stretch downstream serves to highlight the main sources of the pollution at the margin and what needs to be done next.