POLLUTIONAL STUDY OF RIVER GANGA AT KANPUR AND FARRUKHABAD USING WATER QUALITY INDICES

Abstract

The river water pollution in the country is assuming dangerous proportions and pollution abatement programmes in various river basins have become a necessity of the day. The river Ganga is venerated as most sacred river and is also among most polluted. Ambitious Ganga Action Plan (GAP) to clean Ganga water at Hardwar, Kanpur, Allahabad, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Patna and Calcutta was chalked out by Government of India and is currently being executed. In this study impact of various steps undertaken in GAP at Kanpur and Farrukhabad on river water quality were studied. Pollutlonal aspects of river Ganga at Kanpur and Farrukhabad were studied by determining various physico-chemical parameters. Three sampling stations at Kanpur and two at Farrukhabad were selected. Samples were collected, at a frequency of a month, for four months i.e. from Oct.' 92 to Jan.' 93. To inform common man about pollution level of river, Water Quality Indices (WQI) come in handy. In this study two most commonly used WQI i.e. NSF WQI and PIIP were used to express pollutions( level of river water at five sampling stations in two cities (Kanpur and Farrukhabad). Main thrust of study was to asses pollutional level vis-a-vis bathing standards. Since there is no specific-use WO' for bathing developed so far. So a bathing water Index was developed and used to evaluate the pollutional level as far as bathing is concerned. On the scale varying from o (worst quality) to 100 (best quality) BWI was found to be above 95 for both sampling stations at Farrukhabad implying better water quality. At Kanpur in Bithoor BWI value was 83.8 and at Wazidpur and Shekhpur. values were 77.1 and 78.7 implying poorer water quality. BWI developed in present study reflects water quality well.