Allahabad HC does well to ban idol immersions
The Allahabad High Court's decision to ban the immersion of idols in the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers would not have been necessary if the millions of devotees in their misplaced religious zeal had desisted from repeatedly polluting the very rivers they hold as sacred. The court's directive would not have been needed if Government authorities had acted effectively to check the flow of pollutants into the waters that are our lifeline. Idols of deities that the devotees immerse are made of extremely toxic and polluting material, including plastic colours that are not easily dissolved. They leave behind a trail of destruction and devastation on our water bodies. The High Court also deservingly dismissed the Uttar Pradesh Government's silly suggestion that the idols can be immersed and then fished out. No religious sentiment is furthered by the pollution of sacred rivers, and no religious feeling stands violated if the idols are not immersed in the rivers — although there will be vested interests who may want to rake up the non-existent issue of the court’s interference in religious matters, and take the discourse in a different direction. The authorities ought to have by now taken religious leaders and environmental activists into confidence and put in place an alternative mechanism that satisfied all stakeholders. On the contrary, officials have sat on the matter even as the rivers got increasingly polluted. Ironically, the environmentally-dangerous idols kept adding to the destruction of the rivers even as Government authorities continued to pump massive funds running into thousands of crores of rupees to clean up the rivers. The UP State Pollution Control Board has admitted that water quality suffers drastically with the immersion of idols. The State regime should have taken cognisance of this finding and initiated measures to counter the damage. But in this festive season, when the idols are being readied for yet another round of immersion — there are quite a few of these in a year — the authorities remained not just passive but also willing to allow more pollutants to be added to the rivers, leading the High Court to step in.
For the essence of the court order to be translated into reality, more needs to be done beyond the check on immersion of toxic idols, and beyond Uttar Pradesh. A parliamentary panel on environment and forests had months ago reported that the mission to clean the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers had miserably failed. Over the last 20 years, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has spent a massive sum of Rs39,226 crore on cleaning the Ganga and a very substantial Rs1,306 crore on the Yamuna. But the report came to the dismal conclusion that the quality of water in both the rivers has deteriorated. In plain words, both the effort and the money have gone down the drain. Various so-called Action Plans have yielded no result. Shockingly, there has been a complete lack of official accountability. Nobody seems to be concerned over why the plans have collapsed and where the tax-payers' money has disappeared. The ministry took the initiative to clean the Ganga around the Sixth Five Year Plan, while the first phase of the Yamuna Action Plan kicked off in 1993. It's time for a thorough revamp of the schemes and effective supervision.