Increasing amounts of industrial waste are being pumped into the Ganga river, transforming its waters into killer pollutants. A survey conducted by the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRG) under the Indian Council of Medical Research has found that the heavy metals and mercury in the water have resulted in the highest gall bladder cancer cases in the world of people living on the flood plains of the river.
Dr Sameer Kaul, a cancer consultant with Apollo Hospital in Delhi, pointed out: “High gall bladder cancer cases are understandable. The gall bladder is a digestive organ and if anything goes wrong with it, the causative is linked with food and water.”
For every 10,000 people surveyed by the NCRG team in UP, Bihar and West Bengal, it was found that 450 men and 1000 women were suffering from gall bladder cancer. The cases of prostate cancer are also found to be amongst the highest in India. Kaul explained, “A high intake of animal protein is known to cause prostrate cancer. The people living in the river basin take large quantities of fish which are also infected by these polluting waters.”
Dr Jaideep Biswas, director of the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute in Kolkata, told this reporter on the phone that “the Ganga water is now filled with arsenic, lead, cadium, fluoride and heavy metals”.
The result is that for every one lakh people interviewed, 25 were suffering from a variety of cancers which included food pipe, kidneys, liver, urinary bladder and skin cancer. The pollutants sink down into the river bed and infect the ground water which is drunk by the public. Water man Rajender Singh pointed out that the attention of the prime minister has been drawn to the growing pollution in the Ganga in a series of meetings held under the National Ganga River Basin Authority. “It is for the centre to press on the state governments to ban pollutants from being discharged into the Gaga. Unfortunately, nothing is being done on the ground and the result is that our national river is getting more polluted.” Dr Kaul warns that by 2020, a cancer epidemic will have hit India unless the government takes strong steps to end this environmental pollution.