‘Ganga banks are cleanest in Bengal’

Kolkata: The Bengal government may have distanced itself from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat mission but citizens in Bengal appear to have embraced it, feels an Air Force officer who has just completed a record 2,800 km swim covering the entire length of river Ganga.

Wing commander Paramvir Singh, who along with sergeant Gullupilli Narahari and sergeant Saripilli Srihari swam from Devprayag in Uttarakhand to Gangasagar in West Bengal in 43 days, said river banks in Bengal was the cleanest, making it a delightful experience for the trio, The Times of India reported.

“In 2013, I did rafting along this very stretch. Now the river banks have become a lot cleaner, particularly in Bengal. There were large tracts of land along the river where people grew vegetables like gourd. Other states should take a leaf out of Bengal,” said Singh. The team passed through five states—Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal—during the expedition.

The team also discovered something that Bengal could learn from UP. “In major towns of the state, they have dug up large pits and filled it with water from the river. These artificial waterbodies are then used for immersion. This way, they get to do the rituals without polluting the river,” he explained.

While there were sections of the Ganga where the team had to walk and wade in ankle to knee deep water, the stretch that flows by Kanpur was a nightmare as pollution had turned the water black. “The difference between villages and towns/cities is perceptible. People in rural India value cleanliness and keep environs clean. Not so in towns and cities,” said Singh.

Pollution apart, the swimmers faced several other challenges. At Devprayag, the water temperature was sub 10°C. Then came the rapids in Uttarakhand. Since the north experienced a deficit this monsoon, the team had to walk for kilometers as there just wasn’t enough water in the river to swim. At Jalalpur in UP, the team spotted the first gharial, the first in three they would sight. Then there were hyenas during night halts along stretches where dead bodies were cremated along the river bank. In Bengal, they encountered snakes that had to be grabbed and thrown out of the water time and again. The biggest thrill was left for the last. Near Diamond Harbour, they spotted a shark barely 10 ft away!

While the trio swam 12-14 hours from 5.30am to cover 60-80 km daily, they interacted with more than 25,000 people during the night halts.