↑ Bhattacharji, Sukumari; Bandyopadhyay, Ramananda (1995). Legends of Devi. Orient Blackswan. tr. 54. ISBN978-81-250-0781-4. Truy cập ngày 27 tháng 4 năm 2011.
1 2 Haberman, David L. (2006), River of love in an age of pollution:the Yamuna River of northern India, University of California Press. Pp. 277, ISBN0-520-24790-6 , page 160, Quote: "The Ganga Action Plan, commonly known as GAP, was launched dramatically in the holy city of Banares (Varanasi) on ngày 14 tháng 6 năm 1985, by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who promised, "We shall see that the waters of the Ganga become clean once again." The stated task was "to improve water quality, permit safe bathing all along the 2,525 kilometers from the Ganga's origin in the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, and make the water potable at important pilgrim and urban centres on its banks." The project was designed to tackle pollution from twenty-five cities and towns along its banks in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal by intercepting, diverting, and treating their effluents. With the GAP's Phase II, three important tributaries—Damodar, Gomati, and Yamuna—were added to the plan. Although some improvements have been made to the quality of the Ganges's water, many people claim that the GAP has been a major failure. The environmental lawyer M. C. Mehta, for example, filed public interest litigation against project, claiming "GAP has collapsed."
1 2 Gardner, Gary, “Engaging Religion in the Quest for a Sustainable World”, trong Bright, Chris và đồng nghiệp, State of the World: 2003, W. W. Norton & Company. Pp. 256, tr. 152–176, ISBN0-393-32386-2 Bảo trì CS1: Định rõ "và đồng nghiệp" (link) Quote: "The Ganges, also known as the Ganga, is one of the world's major rivers, running for more than 2,500 kilometers from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. It is also one of the most polluted, primarily from sewage, but also from animal carcasses, human corpses, and soap and other pollutants from bathers. Indeed, scientists measure fecal coliform levels at thousands of times what is permissible and levels of oxygen in the water are similarly unhealthy. Renewal efforts have centered primarily on the government-sponsored Ganga Action Plan (GAP), started in 1985 with the goal of cleaning up the river by 1993. Several western-style sewage treatment plants were built along the river, but they were poorly designed, poorly maintained and prone to shut down during the region's frequent power outages. The GAP has been a colossal failure, and many argue that the river is more polluted now than it was in 1985. (page 166)"
1 2 Sheth, Jagadish N. (2008), Chindia Rising, Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Pp. 205, ISBN0-07-065708-4 Quote: "But the Indian government, as a whole, appears typically ineffective. Its ability to address itself to a national problem like environmental degradation is typified by the 20-year, $100 million Ganga Action Plan, whose purpose was to clean up the Ganges River. Leading Indian environmentalists call the plan a complete failure, due to the same problems that have always beset the government: poor planning, corruption, and a lack of technical knowledge. The river, they say, is more polluted than ever. (pages 67–68)"
1 2 3 Singh, Munendra; Singh, Amit K. (2007), “Bibliography of Environmental Studies in Natural Characteristics and Anthropogenic Influences on the Ganga River”, Environ Monit Assess 129: 421–432, doi:10.1007/s10661-006-9374-7 Quote: "In February 1985, the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India launched the Ganga Action Plan, an environmental project to improve the river water quality. It was the largest single attempt to clean up a polluted river anywhere in the world and has not achieved any success in terms of preventing pollution load and improvement in water quality of the river. Failure of the Ganga Action Plan may be directly linked with the environmental planning without proper understanding of the human–environment interactions. The bibliography of selected environmental research studies on the Ganga River is, therefore, an essentially first step for preserving and maintaining the Ganga River ecosystem in future."
1 2 Puttick, Elizabeth (2008), “Mother Ganges, India's Sacred River”, trong Emoto, Masaru, The Healing Power of Water, Hay House Inc. Pp. 275, tr. 241–252, ISBN1-4019-0877-2 Quote: "There have been various projects to clean up the Ganges and other rivers, led by the Indian government's Ganga Action Plan launched in 1985 by Rajiv Gandhi, grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru. Its relative failure has been blamed on mismanagement, corruption, and technological mistakes, but also on lack of support from religious authorities. This may well be partly because the Brahmin priests are so invested in the idea of the Ganga's purity and afraid that any admission of its pollution will undermine the central role of the water in ritual, as well as their own authority. There are many temples along the river, conducting a brisk trade in ceremonies, including funerals, and sometimes also the sale of bottled Ganga jal. The more traditional Hindu priests still believe that blessing Ganga jal purifies it, although they are now a very small minority in vew of the scale of the problem. (page 248)"
1 2 Bharati, Radha Kant (2006), Interlinking of Indian rivers, Lotus Press. Pp. 129, ISBN81-8382-041-7 Quote: "The World Bank estimates the health costs of water pollution in India to be equivalent to three per cent of the country's gross domestic product. With Indian rivers being severely polluted, interlinking them may actually increase these costs. Also, with the widely recognized failure of the Ganga Action Plan, there is a danger that contaminants from the Ganga basin might enter other basins and destroy their natural cleansing processes. The new areas that will be river-fed after the introduction of the scheme may experience crop failures or routing dur to alien compounds carried into their streams from the polluted Ganga basin streams. (page 26)"
↑ Puttick, Elizabeth (2008), “Mother Ganges, India's Sacred River”, trong Emoto, Masaru, The Healing Power of Water, Hay House Inc. Pp. 275, tr. 241–252, ISBN1-4019-0877-2 Quote: "Sacred ritual is only one source of pollution. The main source of contamination is organic waste—sewage, trash, food, and human and animal remains. Around a billion liters of untreated raw sewage are dumped into the Ganges each day, along with massive amounts of agricultural chemicals (including DDT), industrial pollutants, and toxic chemical waste from the booming industries along the river. The level of pollution is now 10,000 percent higher than the government standard for safe river bathing (let alone drinking). One result of this situation is an increase in waterborne diseases, including cholera, hepatitis, typhoid, and amoebic dysentery. An estimated 80 percent of all health problems and one-third of deaths in India are attributable to waterborne illnesses. (page 247)"
↑ Caso, Frank; Wolf, Aaron T. (2010), Freshwater Supply Global Issues, Infobase Publishing. Pp. 350, ISBN0-8160-7826-2 . Quote: "Chronology:1985 *India launches Phase I of the Ganga Action Plan to restore the Ganges River; most deem it a failure by the early 1990s.(page 320)."
↑ Dudgeon, David (2005), “River Rehabilitation for Conservation of Fish Biodiversity in Monsoonal Asia”, Ecology and Society 10 (2): 15 Quote: "To reduce the water pollution in one of Asia's major rivers, the Indian Government initiated the Ganga Action Plan in 1985. The objective of this centrally funded scheme was to treat the effluent from all the major towns along the Ganges and reduce pollution in the river by at least 75%. The Ganga Action Plan built upon the existing, but weakly enforced, 1974 Water Prevention and Control Act. A government audit of the Ganga Action Plan in 2000 reported limited success in meeting effluent targets. Development plans for sewage treatment facilities were submitted by only 73% of the cities along the Ganges, and only 54% of these were judged acceptable by the authorities. Not all the cities reported how much effluent was being treated, and many continued to discharge raw sewage into the river. Test audits of installed capacity indicated poor performance, and there were long delays in constructing planned treatment facilities. After 15 yr. of implementation, the audit estimated that the Ganga Action Plan had achieved only 14% of the anticipated sewage treatment capacity. The environmental impact of this failure has been exacerbated by the removal of large quantities of irrigation water from the Ganges which offset any gains from effluent reductions."
↑ Tiwari, R. C. (2008), “Environmental Scenario in India”, trong Dutt, Ashok K. và đồng nghiệp, Explorations in Applied Geography, PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Pp. 524, ISBN81-203-3384-5 Bảo trì CS1: Định rõ "và đồng nghiệp" (link) Quote: "Many social traditions and customs are not only helping in environmental degradation but are causing obstruction to environmental management and planning. The failure of the Ganga Action Plan to clean the sacred river is partly associated to our traditions and beliefs. The disposal of dead bodies, the immersion of idols and public bathing are the part of Hindu customs and rituals which are based on the notion that the sacred river leads to the path of salvation and under no circumstances its water can become impure. Burning of dead bodies through wood, bursting of crackers during Diwali, putting thousands of tones of fule wood under fire during Holi, immersion of Durga and Ganesh idols into rivers and seas etc. are part of Hindu customs and are detrimental to the environment. These and many other rituals need rethinking and modification in the light of contemporary situations. (page 92)"
↑ Puttick, Elizabeth (2008), “Mother Ganges, India's Sacred River”, trong Emoto, Masaru, The Healing Power of Water, Hay House Inc. Pp. 275, tr. 241–252, ISBN1-4019-0877-2 Quote: "Wildlife is also under threat, particularly the river dolphins. They were one of the world's first protected species, given special status under the reign of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. They're now a critically endangered species, although protected once again by the Indian government (and internationally under the CITES convention). Their numbers have shrunk by 75 per cent over the last 15 years, and they have become extinct in the main tributaries, mainly because of pollution and habitat degradation."
