Namami Gange Has Disbursed Rs 21,340 Crore Since 2014 and Completed Sewage Projects With 4,263 MLD of Capacity, but the Ganga Still Fails the Faecal Bacteria Test in Parts of Three States

The National Mission for Clean Ganga had disbursed Rs 21,340 crore (about Rs 213 billion) between June 2014 and 15 March 2026, the Ministry of Jal Shakti told the Rajya Sabha on 23 March 2026. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data for 2025 show uneven results. Its January to August medians met the bathing limit for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD, a measure of organic pollution) everywhere except stretches the ministry lists, all in Uttar Pradesh. The limit for faecal coliform, bacteria from human and animal waste, was met along the whole river in Uttarakhand and Jharkhand but only in some stretches of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

Rs 20,000 crore was planned and Rs 21,340 crore has been paid out

The Namami Gange Programme was approved in June 2014 with Rs 20,000 crore over five years, according to the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), which the mission hired for a third-party evaluation in 2020. The ministry says the programme has since been extended to March 2026. Of the Rs 21,340 crore disbursed, Rs 16,025.97 crore, about three-quarters, went to sewage treatment projects. As of February 2026, 524 projects had been sanctioned at Rs 43,030 crore and 355 of them, 68 percent, were complete.

Sanctioned cost runs well ahead of cash paid. Projects still being built explain part of that gap. Contract design explains another part, since ASCI notes that under the hybrid annuity model the budget includes 15 years of operation and maintenance, released as an annuity.

A Lok Sabha reply of 4 December 2025 tabulates each year. For 2020-21 to 2024-25 the mission was allocated Rs 11,100 crore and disbursed Rs 10,477 crore, by tuput’s sums. For 2025-26 it was allocated Rs 3,400 crore and had disbursed Rs 1,192 crore by 27 November 2025.

The early years were slower. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit tabled on 19 December 2017, covering 2014-15 to 2016-17, found that only 8 to 63 percent of revised estimates was used and that Rs 2,134 crore lay unspent at the mission, in the summary by PRS Legislative Research. It found no river basin management plan, and detailed project reports (the design documents) for 1,397 MLD of sewage plants were still unapproved in August 2017. ASCI’s 2020 evaluation, on data to 30 June 2020, counted 314 sanctioned projects at Rs 28,862 crore, 130 complete, and Rs 8,915 crore spent against Rs 9,192 crore released.

4,263 MLD of sewage capacity is finished against 6,610 MLD planned

MLD means million litres a day. Minister of State Raj Bhushan Choudhary told the Lok Sabha on 6 August 2026, as ANI reported, that 219 sewage treatment plants costing Rs 35,970 crore had been taken up for a planned 6,610 MLD, and that 146 sewerage projects with 4,263 MLD were complete as of June 2026. On 2 April 2026 the ministry had reported 138 projects and 4,050 MLD.

The ministry’s reply of 4 December 2025 gives the other side of the ledger. The five main-stem states (Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal) generate about 10,160 MLD of sewage against 7,820 MLD of available plant capacity, with 1,996 MLD more under way. The shortfall is 2,340 MLD by tuput’s subtraction. The 4,263 MLD counts mission projects and the 7,820 MLD counts every plant in the five states, so one cannot be taken from the other.

The mission has also missed some yearly targets. Its own targets from 2020-21 to 2024-25 add up to 2,508 MLD and its achievements to 2,343 MLD, with 2023-24 the widest miss: 711 MLD added against a target of 1,000. By 27 November 2025 it had added 83 MLD of a 600 MLD target for 2025-26.

Finished plants do not always treat what reaches them. A CAG audit of Uttarakhand for 2018 to 2023, as Down To Earth reported in April 2026, found 12 of 44 plants discharging untreated sewage. Of the 44 inspected between January and March 2023, five met the discharge standards of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the environmental court. At Haridwar a 68 MLD plant averaged 71 MLD in March 2023, with peaks of 84 MLD.

What the river tests say, station by station

The CPCB samples the main stem at 112 locations: 19 in Uttarakhand, 41 in Uttar Pradesh, 33 in Bihar, 4 in Jharkhand and 15 in West Bengal. Its filing to the NGT lists the bathing criteria as pH 6.5 to 8.5, dissolved oxygen above 5 mg per litre, BOD of 3 mg per litre or less, and faecal coliform of 2,500 MPN or less per 100 ml. MPN, most probable number, is the laboratory estimate of bacteria in a sample. A tighter desirable level for coliform is 500.

The 23 March 2026 reply reports 2025 medians. Both pH and dissolved oxygen met the criteria at every location. BOD missed it at Farrukhabad to Purana Rajapur near Kanpur, at Dalmau in Raebareli, and from downstream of Mirzapur to Tarighat at Ghazipur, apart from two locations that passed. For coliform, the reply says the criterion is met along all of Uttarakhand and Jharkhand and in “certain stretches” of the other three states, without naming the stretches that fail.

Station medians in that reply show movement. Faecal coliform at Assi Ghat in Varanasi fell from 2,500 in 2014 to 790 in 2025. At Patna’s NIT Gandhi Ghat it fell from 5,400 to 2,200, and downstream of the Ganga Bridge from 3,000 to 1,950. Those Patna readings pass the 2,500 ceiling but stay above the 500 desirable level. At Haridwar’s Har Ki Pauri the 2025 median was 135, and downstream of the town 140.

The ministry’s table of CPCB polluted-stretch reports for 2018 and 2025 shows the Haridwar to Sultanpur stretch, listed at Priority IV in 2018, no longer polluted. West Bengal’s stretch moved from Priority III to Priority V, the class with BOD of 3 to 6 mg per litre. Uttar Pradesh is marked “partially improved” and Bihar “marginal pollution remains”. Biological monitoring at 50 locations in 2024-25 rated water quality mostly Good to Moderate.

Prayagraj in the 2025 Maha Kumbh, told from the filings

The NGT’s order of 23 December 2024 told the CPCB and the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) to sample the Ganga and Yamuna at Prayagraj at least twice a week, publish the results, and keep the water at bathing or drinking quality at all times. The festival ran from 13 January to 26 February 2025, and its crowd figures are covered in our piece on the Kumbh’s numbers.

The CPCB’s first report, dated 3 February 2025, said river water was “not conforming with the primary water quality for bathing” for faecal coliform at all monitored locations on various occasions, LiveLaw reported. The board linked the rise to the number of people bathing, including on the main bathing days. Its own data table, filed on 28 February, shows the scale. A January sample at Sangam read 49,000 MPN per 100 ml. On 4 February Sangam read 7,900, and the Shastri Bridge point near Nagvasuki Mandir read 11,000.

The NGT’s 17 February order recorded that the UPPCB had not filed the full action-taken report it was told to file, and that the reports it did attach showed high faecal and total coliform at several locations. On 19 February, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath told the state Assembly that Sangam water was “fit for drinking”. He said the latest reports put BOD near Sangam below 3 and dissolved oxygen around 8 to 9, the Tribune reported.

The UPPCB’s compliance report, verified on 25 February, said its February samples from six river points met outdoor bathing norms in most cases, with a few marginally over the coliform limit, and that every sample at Sangam conformed. Its own table has Sangam between 2,200 and 2,400 on eight dates from 2 to 19 February, and Shastri Bridge between 2,700 and 3,300.

The CPCB’s affidavit of 28 February took a different cut. It said readings vary widely with place, time and flow, and that a single result is a snapshot of one spot at one moment, so it took the median of 20 rounds of sampling from 12 January to 22 February. At Sangam the median faecal coliform was 1,700 MPN per 100 ml, BOD 2.51 mg per litre and dissolved oxygen 8.5. The median was also 1,700 across the eight mass-bathing locations and 1,400 across all ten monitored points, inside the limits. The ministry repeated the median finding in the Lok Sabha on 24 July 2025. The coverage reviewed for this article reports no tribunal ruling on the two sets of numbers.

Kanpur’s tanneries and a sewage plant that missed its standard

In an affidavit to the NGT dated 21 May 2025, the mission said about 350 tanneries operate in the Jajmau cluster at Kanpur, 262 of them operational and the rest closed by the pollution boards under tribunal orders. A new 20 MLD common effluent treatment plant, approved at Rs 741.36 crore, had finished construction and was in its stabilisation stage. It has a separate unit to recover chromium, a tanning chemical. Treated effluent is mixed with treated sewage before it goes to irrigation. The ministry told the Lok Sabha on 6 August 2026 that the Jajmau plant and one at Mathura are complete. A third, at Banther, is sanctioned.

Inspections of grossly polluting industries along the Ganga, begun in 2017, put their BOD load at 26 tonnes a day in 2017 and 10.75 in 2024, the ministry’s 2 April 2026 reply says. Effluent volume fell from 349 MLD in 2017 to 265.56 MLD in 2024.

The same affidavit covers Kanpur’s sewage. IIT Kanpur’s monitoring in November 2024 found the 210 MLD Bingawan plant outside its design standards, with BOD of 38 mg per litre against 30, chemical oxygen demand of 144 against 100, and faecal coliform of 23,000 against 1,000. The state executing agency has imposed penalties, the affidavit says. The CPCB’s 2025 data list the Farrukhabad to Purana Rajapur stretch at Kanpur among the BOD exceptions.

The 2018 flow rule, and the compliance record we could open

The notification of 9 October 2018 set minimum flows for the upper Ganga of 20 percent of the monthly average flow from November to March, 25 percent in October, April and May, and 30 percent from June to September, Down To Earth reported. Existing hydropower projects had three years to comply. The June to September band is the monsoon season in our explainer on the monsoon. SANDRP, an advocacy group on rivers and dams, says a notification of 14 September 2019 made compliance mandatory from 15 December 2019.

Vinod Tare, who headed the consortium of seven IITs advising the government, said “We were never in favour of flat 20-30 per cent limits” and that the consortium had proposed site-specific limits. The Central Water Commission checks compliance and reports quarterly. SANDRP’s review of the four 2019 reports for the 11 monitored projects concluded that every one broke the rule at some point in each quarter and that no penalty followed. The ministry’s replies of 2 April and 6 August 2026 say the norms have been implemented and are monitored. We could not open the commission’s own reports and found no later project-by-project table. ASCI’s 2020 evaluation scored the mission’s river-wholesomeness output, which maps to its continuous-flow goal, 4 out of 10.

The dolphin count has no earlier like-for-like

The first nationwide river dolphin survey, led by the Wildlife Institute of India for 2021 to 2023, estimated 6,327 dolphins across 28 rivers in eight states, covering more than 8,500 km. Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the report on 3 March 2025. The release says Uttar Pradesh recorded the most, then Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. The 6,327 includes a small Indus river dolphin population in the Beas, and the ministry’s 23 March 2026 reply gives the Ganges dolphin figure as 6,324.

The ministry’s Lok Sabha reply of 24 July 2025 says the population rose from 2,500 to 3,000 in 2009 to about 3,500 in 2015 and about 6,327 in 2021 to 2023, more than double since 2009. The Wildlife Institute’s 2021 status report lists earlier estimates, including 2,644 for the Ganga basin from a 2017-18 survey, and says these numbers were not estimated with a standardised method across the range. The same report lists the Ken and Betwa among tributaries from which dolphins had disappeared, while the ministry’s reply lists both among rivers where the 2021 to 2023 survey recorded dolphins for the first time.

A second survey using the same method began at Bijnor on 17 January 2026, covering the main stem from Bijnor to Ganga Sagar first, with underwater microphones called hydrophones. India’s tiger figures have a similar difficulty, which our piece on the tiger count sets out.

What the record shows has improved and what it does not

On the official record, the Haridwar to Sultanpur stretch has left the polluted-stretch list. Median coliform fell at Varanasi and Patna between 2014 and 2025. West Bengal’s polluted stretch moved from Priority III to V, and industrial BOD load fell from 26 to 10.75 tonnes a day between 2017 and 2024.

The same record shows coliform above the bathing limit in unnamed stretches of three states, BOD above the limit at Kanpur, Raebareli and Mirzapur to Ghazipur, and plants failing discharge standards at Kanpur and in Uttarakhand. Sangam readings reached 49,000 in January 2025. Sewage generated in the five main-stem states exceeded plant capacity by 2,340 MLD in December 2025.

Phase two of Namami Gange was sanctioned only to the end of FY 2025-26. As of June 2026, 146 of 219 sewage projects were complete, with 4,263 of 6,610 MLD built, the Lok Sabha heard on 6 August.