Impact of Urbanization on Rivers, India

Abstract

Abstract: A Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report of 2015 brought out the fact that 61,948 million litres of urban sewage is generated on a daily basis in India. But the cities have an installed sewage treatment capacity of only 38 per cent of this. In reality more than this amount goes untreated into the rivers or water bodies as the treatment capacity of major sewage treatment plants (STPs) in the country is around 66 per cent of the installed capacity as per CPCB findings of 2013. As a result, more than 38,000 million litres of waste water goes into the major rivers, water bodies and even percolates into the ground every day. Accelerated transformation of ‘urban riverfront development’ has been pushed along the riverbanks in the last few decades. The riverfront development has been reduced to just cosmetic ‘river beautification’ and unaccountable money spent to increase its real estate and commercial value. Increasing urbanization in the river basin is followed by a number of serious Physical, Chemical & Environmental impacts on the health of the river basin system. We are in the country where rivers are considered as mother but it is unfortunate to say that Indian rivers are much more polluted in comparison of other rivers of the world. Through this Dissertation it will be tried to understand the major reason citizens are not sensitive towards river and develop understanding how we can rejuvenate our tributary rivers.