Ganga Rejuvenation

Governance Challenges and Policy Options

Ora-orn Poocharoen, Robert James Wasson;Xun Wu;;

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9789814704595
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique asiatique

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This book focuses on governance and management issues in the much publicized 'Ganga Rejuvenation Project', led by the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. Attempts over the past three decades to clean up and rejuvenate one of the world's greatest rivers have proved futile. The major reasons for the lack of success are absence of long-term planning, poor co-ordination and failure to sustain whatever little infrastructure for water and sewage treatment could be developed. Focusing on these broad aspects, the book explores spaces for better governance through active community participation, knowledge management, prospects of Public-Private-Partnership, e-governance, youth education, waterfront development, lessons from past failures, comparative international analogies, utilization of external aid and global expertise in successful implementation of a sustainable long-term plan for a river basin's integrated development of both the economy and environment. A host of activities, such as, improving pollution monitoring systems, new development plans for tourism enhancement; river dredging and sewering riparian cities are already being carried in the hope of quick results. The Government of India has also appointed a task force for preparation of a long-term strategy. However, substantial knowledge gaps persist especially with regard to governance. This book aims to address the governance and policy issues and will be a very timely contribution to cleaning as well as rejuvenating Ganga, a river that is lifeline of millions of people.

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Contents:

• Introduction
• Historical Evaluation of Ganga Action Plans (Dawa Tshering, Denny Ariaputra, Soh Siew Luie, Tashi Tobgay and Wang Nian)
• Forming a Broad Umbrella: Facilitating Inter- and Intra-State Coordination (Hlaing Myat, Lay Sopagna, Sirilak Kakanopas, Soe Myint Aung, Visvanathakkurukkal Sokkanathan and Joost Buurman)
• Educating the Youth: Facilitating a Sustainable Transformation of Ganga (Low Lay Chin, Mark McKiernan, May Yu Lwin, Siow Boon Teik, Erwin and Thamil Selvan Govintharaju)
• Social Mobilisation: The Fight for Hearts and Minds in Ganga Rejuvenation (David Geordie Wilks, Gilbert E Lumantao, Giridharan Sengaiah, Gloria Wei Wanting, Karen Ann Leong Sun Lian and Khial Muhammad Afghanzai)
• Whither PPPs? Sustaining Sewage Infrastructure in Ganga Basin (Vishal Kapoor, Xuan Xiao, Zhang Jiapeng and Zhao Huaning)
• Principles of Waterfront Development — Lessons for Varanasi (Kok Hoong Chan, Thi Thanh Huyen Do, Lay Ling Lim, Salai Aung Myint and Shikha Thaman)
• Data Governance in Fostering Policy Coherence and Collaboration for Cleaning the River Ganga (Doris Maharlika H Dizon, Prudente S Parcia, Rakesh Kumar, Wai Min Kwok and Maitreyee Mukherjee)
• Creating a Knowledge Management Culture for Ganga River: An Essential Tool for Success (Thanathorn Asanarong, Sowon Jeon, Ren Yuanlin and Christopher Yeo)
• Regional Collaboration in the Ganga Basin: Prospects for a Cleaner Ganga and Regional Peace (Elijah Lau Maung-Hoe, Chang Lih Kang, Goh Si Mien, Tetsuya Lim Hayashi and Tran Thanh Tung)
• Managing Competing Demand for Water in the Ganga: Lessons from the Yellow River (Han Mingyu, Cao Dongdong, Li Na and Panji Ruky)

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Readership: Practitioners, policy-makers and civil society organizations that are working for the Ganga clean-up and rejuvenation; general public, NGOs, environment agencies and aid agencies interested in the topic.
-->Keywords:Governance;Ganga Rejuvenation;Comparative Analysis;E-Governance;Knowledge Management;Waste Management;Resilience;Stakeholder Involvement;Institutional ReformsReview: Key Features:

• First of its kind to present governance issues that will be instrumental in laying out a holistic integrated river-basin management plan
• Focuses on current environmental-social-economic issues through the lens of governance, policy and integrated management
• Includes chapters dealing with waste management and financial modeling of sustainable infra-structure development
• Addresses how education, public awareness and knowledge management can be used as effective tools for implementing an integrated rejuvenation program that would include central, state and local agencies as well as the communities

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Ganga — India’s “National River” — and its catchment have significant economic, cultural, social, environmental and religious importance for its more than 500 million inhabitants, or 43% of the population of the country. Across eleven states, the Ganga catchment accounts for more than a quarter of land mass and one third of its total surface water. The Ganga is also considered India’s most sacred river, known as Ganga Ma (Mother Ganga), and is worshipped and revered as a living goddess by the hundreds of millions of Hindus in India and around the world.

Despite such iconic status, the Ganga River has been heavily polluted due to rapid urbanization, massive expansion of industrial development, and long-standing and increasingly intensive agriculture and pastoralism. The towns and cities located along the river generate some 3 billion litres of sewage every day, and less than half of this is treated before reaching the Ganga due to insufficient and often non-functional sewage treatment plants (STPs). Industrial waste is another pollutant source. Tanneries are one of the largest contributors to industrial pollution, followed by paper and pulp, chemical, sugar, and textile industries. The perennial flow of the river is limited by excessive withdrawals upstream into irrigation canals and by reservoirs constructed for irrigation and hydropower generation, which further aggravates the pollution problems by reducing dilution.

Indian governments have been trying to clean up the Ganga over the last three decades. The first Ganga conservation project, Ganga Action Plan-1 (GAP I) was launched in 1985 under the leadership of then Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, to deal with water pollution. The project was initially expected to be completed in five years, but the Indian government extended it to 2000 after realizing the enormity of the problem. GAP Phase I was later joined by GAP Phase II to cover tributaries and cities exempted under GAP Phase I. In particular GAP II covered the Yamuna, Damodar and Gomati rivers and the big cities along these Ganga tributaries. The decades of effort through GAP I & II resulted in the addition of sewage treatment capacity but with limited visible change to the Ganga’s health.

In May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought the issue into the limelight by vowing to rejuvenate the Ganga by tackling the pollution problem. The National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) was merged into the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) to become the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, and a new platform named ‘Namami Gange’ (National Mission for Clean Ganga) was launched across multiple ministries with mandates for Ganga clean up. In 2015, the Union Cabinet approved an outlay of about US$ 3 billion for the first five years.

However, little progress has been made so far. It is estimated that only US$205 million had been spent between April 2015 and March 2017. The National Green Tribunal, a judicial body established in 2010 to deal with cases related to environmental protection and conservation of natural resources, observed that “Not a single drop of river Ganga has been cleaned so far” and criticised the government for “wasting public money” in the name of the Namami Gange project. The Supreme Court ridiculed the government for the slow progress by stating that “it would take 200 years to clean up the river at the current pace”.

While much of the effort to clean the Ganga over the last 30 years, including the most recent attempt through Namami Gange, has been centred around building sewage treatment capacity in major urban centres along the river, other policy interventions can also be considered. For example, efforts to restore the flow of the river could be critical to enhance its pollutant transport and diluting capacities, and measures to reduce industrial pollution are essential along with building more wastewater treatment facilities.

In addition, the experience from GAP I & II highlights the importance of the quality of governance. A study conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board revealed that less than 60% of the installed capacity of existing sewage treatment plants along the Ganga was being used and 30% of the plants were not even functioning. A consortium of seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) point out that the multiplicity of authorities, lack of assistance from state governments, and a dearth of monitoring are among the leading contributing factors for failure of past Ganga programs.

Policy interventions aiming at behavioral changes can play a key role. Behavior change is increasingly understood by public health experts around the world as critical to the success of water and sanitation projects. As Hans-Joachim Mosler has observed, efforts to provide people with water, sanitation, and hygiene “hardware” must be accompanied by programs that promote “software” changes. For example, no effort to reduce diarrheal disease and death has been successful without behavioral change to increase hand washing and reduce open defecation.

The book focuses on governance and management issues in the much-publicized ‘Ganges Rejuvenation Project’. We argue that rejuvenation of the Ganga is more about governance than about technology, and that the major reasons for the lack of success in the past are — absence of long-term planning, poor co-ordination, and failure to sustain water and sewage treatment had been developed. The notion of governance implies that this is a problem that has solutions and that the solutions can only derive from proper policy design and the ability to connect all the dots related to what is a very difficult and complex problem. Although the Government of India has also appointed a task force for preparation of a long-term strategy, substantial knowledge gaps persist, especially with regard to governance.

Focusing on these broad aspects, chapters in the book explore spaces for better governance through active community participation, knowledge management, prospects of public-private-partnership, e-governance, youth education, lessons from past governance failures, comparative international analogies, and utilization of external aid and global expertise in successful implementation of a sustainable long-term plan for a river basin’s integrated development of both the economy and environment. A host of activities, such as improving pollution monitoring systems, new development plans for tourism enhancement, river dredging and sewering riparian cities, are already being carried out with the aim of achieving quick results. But will they be successful? This book aims to address the governance challenge and is, therefore, a very timely contribution to cleaning one of the world’s great rivers.

The Outline of the Volume

Contemporary public policies are often the product of older policies. It is, therefore, crucial to learn from the evolution of policies in order to detect successes and flaws in any given policy arena. Chapter 2 presents an assessment of earlier efforts in cleaning up the Ganga, namely GAP I and GAP II, with a view to drawing useful lessons for Namami Gange by identifying past gaps in policy design and implementation. Based on the stages model of policy making (agenda setting, policy formulation, decision-making, policy implementation and evaluation), a systematic review of GAP I and GAP II has been conducted to identify shortcomings corresponding to specific stages. Among 11 shortcomings identified in the chapter, the following are particularly important insufficient public buy-in, lack of clarity about policy outcomes, lack of ownership by state governments, and lack of sustained political interest. The authors argue that these shortcomings may undermine the performance of Namami Gange unless sufficient attention is paid to them and interventions are appropriate.. The chapter concludes with three main policy recommendations: 1) define a clear vision for Namami Gange; 2) make Namami Gangae a “People’s Program”, and 3) involve state and local governments more closely in policy design and implementation.

Similar to Chapter 2, the empirical base for Chapter 3 also derives from analysis of GAP I and GAP II. This chapter focuses on recommendations for coordination and collaboration strategies among key authorities and agencies. The problem of agencies working in silos is common in many governments, and the Indian case is not an exception. Based on key principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), the chapter focuses on the effectiveness of interstate and intrastate coordination as a key contributing factor to the performance of the Ganga clean up projects. Factors impeding effective interstate coordination include institutional weaknesses such as the fragmentation, isolation, overlap and duplication of tasks and responsibilities, inadequate delegation of fiscal resources, imbalance of power between central and local governments, and conflicts of interest due to political affiliations and ideological differences. Factors affecting the effectiveness of intrastate coordination include lack of integration in the two-tiered system and at the project level, and perverse incentives and enforcement mechanisms. The chapter offers several specific measures to strengthen interstate and intrastate coordination, such as empowering state and local governments in the Ganga clean up, broader representation of different stakeholders in the NGRBA, making greater use of informal institutions, insulating public agencies from political changes, strengthening the Ganga Knowledge Centre, and enhancing the capacity and mechanisms for information collection and sharing.

Chapters 4 and 5 deal with an essential aspect of governance for sustainable transformation of the Ganga clean up. Chapter 4 focuses on the role of educating youth through environmental education (EE) for long-lasting impact on the health of the Ganga River, while Chapter 5 builds the case for social mobilization. Environmental education can help ensure that young people develop into individuals with the ambition, commitment and skills to become key drivers for change in the attitudes and behaviours of the community-at-large for sustainable transformation. The authors of this chapter carried out careful data collection among teachers and youths in Varanasi. Based on primary and secondary research, the findings of the study suggest that, though environmental education has a long history in India, it has failed to produce its intended objectives because of inefficient attention to EE, an overly broad EE curriculum, and ineffective teaching. The main recommendations include inducting the Minister responsible for school education into the NGRBA and establishing a youth division within the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG). In addition, the chapter explicitly discusses the quality of curriculum design, pedagogy, teacher training and development, and the need to develop alliances between teachers.

The chapter on social mobilization (Chapter 5) highlights public apathy as one cause of the persistence of severe pollution in the Ganga, despite the existence of formal accountability mechanisms such as elections. This chapter investigates the possibility of large-scale social movement around the pollution problems in the Ganga River. With careful analysis of previous social movements targeted at the Ganga River, the authors explain reasons for public apathy and explore the possibility of igniting social mobilization to expedite the process of Ganga Rejuvenation. The chapter traces the evolution of social activism concerning Ganga pollution, and its success and failures in overcoming public apathy. The main contribution of the chapter is to offer a range of strategies and tactics for social movements based on theoretical frameworks and practices elsewhere. Practical and detailed advice is given on how to apply these frameworks, strategies and tactics, such as how to identify trigger issues, build coalitions, reach out to target groups, sustain support, and the staging of trigger events. The attention paid to the operational details of social movements makes the chapter an excellent manual for social and environmental activists who are motivated to harness the power of the people to deal with the social and environmental issues of both the clean up and the post clean up phases.

While the private sector has often been portrayed as the villain in environmental degradation, private sector players can play a key role in Ganga rejuvenation. The Indian Government has identified public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a key policy tool for Namami Gange, but India’s experience with PPPs in water and wastewater has been mixed, and public opposition to the involvement of private sector players remains virulent. Chapter 6 presents the vicious cycle that has undermined the potential of PPP for restoring the Ganga: inadequate cost recovery for wastewater services led to low take-up of PPPs and low levels of investment in the sector overall, and the increase in untreated discharge further deteriorated water quality which, in turn, raised the costs of water treatment along the Ganga, making it more difficult to achieve cost-recovery. The chapter highlights several thought-provoking policy interventions to break this vicious cycle. First of all, STP construction should be unbundled from sewage network rollout to be more cost-effective. Second, water and wastewater tariffs as well as decision-making should be separated, instead of combined, to enable more extensive involvement of the private sector in wastewater treatment. Last, PPP contracts should be structured to recognize the high level of uncertainty in future developments.

Chapter 7 on river (or water) front development, focuses on Varanasi where the tensions among various competing interests, namely religious practices, tourism development, and environmental sustainability, culminated. Waterfront development is still a relatively new concept in many parts of the world. It combines urban planning, water accessibility, and environmental protection, and aims to achieve economic development while creating liveable cities. The chapter identifies waterfront development as a potential mechanism to better manage various competing interests through more systematic application of the principles of effective urban design and planning. Based on a comparative analysis of waterfront development in Varanasi and other cities around the world, specifically Minneapolis in the USA, Manado in Indonesia, Copenhagen in Denmark, and Singapore, the chapter offers several valuable suggestions for waterfront development in Varanasi, as well as concrete steps to address the current weaknesses in strategic choices, and institutional arrangements and processes. Given the importance of waterfront development, lessons drawn from the chapter based on Varanasi can have significant implications for other major cities along the Ganga where conflicts among competing interests have also intensified.

The availability and usage of data and knowledge can play a key role in Ganga rejuvenation due to the complex dynamics of the river pollution problems. The lack of authoritative data has led to differentiated views and contrasting arguments regarding past experiences of the Ganga River clean up projects. The chapter on data governance (Chapter 8) highlights the availability of accurate, updated data in fostering policy coherence and collaboration for Ganga rejuvenation. Applying the four-pillar framework of data governance, which consists of policy, people, process and technology, the chapter points to several key deficiencies in current and earlier efforts to clean up the Ganga, such as lack of policy coherence in data governance, fragmented approaches to data governance across different government agencies, lack of data sharing and dissemination mandates, and limited use of available best technology for data governance. Various policy recommendations to address these problems are also considered. Efficient data governance can significantly benefit the general public as well; ensuring greater knowledge dissemination, awareness and their motivating inclusive participation in this massive river-basin rejuvenation drive.

Chapter 9 looks beyond data by employing the concept of knowledge management (KM) and several key related frameworks, and makes a convincing case that knowledge management is an essential tool in the Ganga Rejuvenation. It is also noted in the chapter that the tacit knowledge of people and communities is under appreciated and under utilized, implying that knowledge should be drawn from many sources, not just official ones. Through the analysis based on a KM framework of knowledge generation, validation, and dissemination, the chapter highlights some existing knowledge gaps in the Ganga Rejuvenation Project, providing targets for future efforts. In the area of pollution data, much more can be done to generate and validate useful knowledge, and to share that knowledge effectively. Through the application of data-information-knowledge-wisdom, the chapter demonstrates how existing data can be turned into more useful information, information into more practical knowledge, and finally knowledge into true wisdom in understanding Ganga river pollution and finding sustainable long-term solutions.

The last two chapters of the volume take international and comparative perspectives. Chapter 10 on regional collaboration suggests that better cooperation among riparian states of the Ganga basin can greatly benefit Ganga Rejuvenation. Water storage facilities built in Nepal can serve the interests of both countries by increasing river flow to India, particularly during the dry season, thereby augmenting the pollutant transporting and diluting capacities of the river while generating economic benefits for Nepal in terms of electricity generation. While the prospects of these projects has been dampened due to the mistrust and political chaos of Nepal, their potential importance to Ganga rejuvenation may provide strong impetus for India to make it a strategic priority. On the other hand, the Ganga clean up can also help improve the relationship between India and Bangladesh as conflicts over the quantity and quality of water reaching Bangladesh have strained the relationships between the two countries. The chapter argues that cooperation between the three countries on the Ganga River will not only help to clean and protect the river but would also be positive for security concerns. The chapter lays out a detailed set of recommendations on possible steps and actions that could be taken by the three countries.

Chapter 11 also emphasizes the importance of augmenting river flow as a way to reduce pollution, based on a systematic comparison between the Ganga and Yellow River in China. Lessons from the Yellow River set out in the chapter are: 1) set up environmental flows alongside pollutant abatement; 2) establish an umbrella water governance legal framework in the short run and explore the possibility of legislating a national Water Law in the long run; 3) and set an explicit amount control on environmental flows.

We hope that the ideas and recommendations presented in this book will assist in the development of more effective governance in the Ganga basin and thereby reduce pollution and return Ganga Ma to a healthier state. We, therefore, trust that there will be no need for another account in a decade or so that chronicles the failures of Namami Gange.

Chapter 2

HISTORICAL EVALUATION OF GANGA ACTION PLANS

Dawa Tshering, Denny Ariaputra, Soh Siew Luie,
Tashi Tobgay and Wang Nian

Introduction

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Contents
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Historical Evaluation of Ganga Action Plans
• Chapter 3 Forming a Broad Umbrella: Facilitating
• Chapter 4 Educating the Youth: Facilitating a Sustainable Transformation of Ganga
• Chapter 5 Social Mobilisation: The Fight for Hearts and Minds in Ganga Rejuvenation
• Chapter 6 Whither PPPs? Sustaining Sewage Infrastructure in Ganga Basin
• Chapter 7 Principles of Waterfront Development – Lessons for Varanasi
• Chapter 8 Data Governance in Fostering Policy Coherence and Collaboration for Cleaning the River Ganga
• Chapter 9 Creating a Knowledge Management Culture for Ganga River: An Essential Tool for Success
• Chapter 10 Regional Collaboration in the Ganga Basin: Prospects for a Cleaner Ganga and Regional Peace
• Chapter 11 Managing Competing Demand for Water in the Ganga: Lessons from the Yellow River