Rainer Kellers, a journalist from Germany , is travelling along river Ganga . He shares his views and experiences about Ganga with Eco Friends.

When I came to Kanpur in the middle of May 2005 I knew that I was going to see one of the most polluted places in India. Perhaps the most polluted of all. But despite this knowledge I was truly shocked when I actually saw it.

Before coming to Kanpur I had been visiting the upper part of the Ganges. During my four months stay in India I was following the holy river from its source to the end. This travel was part of a scholarship program that I did with support of the German Heinz-Kuehn-Foundation. This foundation helps young journalists from the state of Northrhine-Westfalia to work in developing countries. My aim was to write about pollution of the Ganges and the various efforts to save the river, including the Ganga Action Plan (GAP).

First I went up to the source of the river, on about 4000 metres in one of the most beautiful valleys of the whole Himalayan range. There the river, named Bhagirathi, is coming out of the Gaumukh glacier. It is a very special place even for a non-Hindu like me. The air is thin, the surrounding mountains are majestic and the river is cleaner than clean – it's in the true meaning of the word pure. I didn't hesitate to taste the icy cold water. And if it hadn't been for the cold air and the shallowness of the river just at the beginning of the melting period at the end of April I would have taken a dip. So with a feeling of joy to have seen a wonderful part of nature I started my long journey downriver.

The sad moments began quiet soon when I saw the dams and barrages at Uttarkashi, Tehri and elsewhere. The river is forced into tunnels, diverted and its course changed. The worst part was Haridwar, where most of the sacred water is diverted into the Upper Ganges Canal . I took a look at the original bed of the river behind the massive barrage and it was nearly dry.

My spirit rose when I saw the river again some two hundred kilometres down south before the Narora barrage. Although still very shallow the Ganges was wide there. The landscape looked peaceful and there were only a few smaller towns and villages on the riverbanks. Obviously these settlements contribute to the pollution of the river but the Ganges is still capable of handling this load there. A proof for that is the existence of a small population of river dolphins, very sensitive animals, who need a clean environment to survive.

Everything had changed when I reached Kanpur . As I said before, I knew what was awaiting me. But after seeing Gaumukh, the Bhagirathi valley and the dolphins of the Upper Ganges I was really shaken.

On one of my first days in Kanpur Rakesh Jaiswal from Eco Friends took me to the riverbank near Jajmau. Most of the several hundred tanneries of the city are located there. We went to the backside of one of these factories. There I saw a stream of green coloured stinking effluent coming out of the building. It formed a small waterfall when going down to the sandy bank of the Ganges . Without any interruptions it found its way into the water just beside the burning Ghat.

Some days later I took a boat downstream from Massacre Ghat. This time I saw several of these disgusting streams of green chemical poison emptying into the river. Clearly the Effluent Treatment Plants these tanneries are supposed to run are not working or even nonexistent.

But there are other annoying sights at the riverbank in Kanpur . At Dapka Ghat for example. Just behind the temples at this bathing site there is a major sewer, which diverts domestic sewage from the city to one of the three Sewage Treatment Plants. This sewer is broken. In a big fountain the polluted water is coming out of the sewer, forming a tributary which flows into the river. Buffalos are bathing at the confluence.

Only some hundred metres from that place there is another nice little waterfall made of domestic sewage. This time the sewer is not damaged. It is an open pipe obviously constructed to empty its load into Ganga . Given that the capacity of the three treatment plants of the city lies way behind the actual load of about 400 mld, it's no wonder that this sewer exists. Where else should the untreated water go but into the drain Ganges ? Ganga looks like a huge open drain in Kanpur .

And even the installed capacity of about 170 mld is not fully used. I visited the Intermediate Pumping Station at Chabilepurwa, which is supposed to pump the tannery effluent to the treatment plant. It was not working. One worker there was told that he hadn't received any salary for over four months now. You can't expect any initiative or dynamism from frustrated people like him.

On a visit to two villages outside of Kanpur I saw another sewage channel. This open drain, covered with white foam and stinking like the toxic cocktail which came out of the tanneries – clearly some of the effluent was mixed with the domestic sewage – is going out of town to the downstream villages. There it is used to irrigate the fields. One can imagine that this water is not doing any good for the villagers, their cattle and their crops.

And indeed: When I interviewed some of the villagers they revealed that there is an unusual high rate of skin diseases among them. I saw people with rotten fingernails, people whose skin lost all colour and others with wound-like markings on their necks. They were complaining about high rates of tuberculosis, cancer, stomach and kidney problems and leprosy. Moreover the productivity of their crops, they said, has gone down by 40 percent and their cows only give half the amount of milk they should give. The villagers blame the bad water for their problems. They say even the colour of the groundwater has changed to an ugly yellow. Officially all this is denied. The low productivity for example is said to be a curse of some root disease.

In the suburb of Noraiakheda the colour of the groundwater has also changed. I saw greenish water coming out of a hand pump. This time it's not the sewage but heavy metals in the soil that contaminate the water, mostly chromium. Noraiakheda is located next to an extended dumping ground for industrial waste. It is a barren place with multicoloured hills made of waste and some poor human creatures that make a living from these remains of the industrial production. Of course, the health of the people from Noraiakheda is deteriorating.

There are more such sad sights in Kanpur . For example the neglected streets and living quarters of the tannery workers. Or the newly built Kanpur barrage which will provide drinking water for the city in the future but will also worsen the situation of the river because it reduces the inflow of fresh water in the downstream. But without any doubt the worst I've seen in Kanpur were the floating dead bodies in the river.

For religious reasons some of the dead may not be burned, pregnant women for example, sadhus or lepers. Others are only half burned because their relatives can't afford the wood for the pyre. And there are those unfortunate victims of a capital crime who are thrown into the river either by their murderers or by policemen who rather keep the money meant for burning post-autopsy bodies for themselves or simply do not mind dumping of the bodies in the river. The dead are not a major contributor to the pollution of the Ganga . But their sight is truly irritating and disgusting. Even more so, if you see more than one of these. And I happened to see a lot at one spot.

I took part in a two day cleaning campaign organized by Eco Friends. The aim of that campaign was to fish the human corpses out of the Ganges and to bury them on the sandy riverbank. Two days before the campaign started members of the Dhanuk caste had collected every floating body they could find in the river stretch from Old Ganga Bridge to Massacre Ghat. They had tied the dead near the riverbank to drag them out of the water and bury them. The sight and especially the smell of these rotting carcasses are indescribable. These are utmost insults to the holiness of the river and any idea of purity. It was the negative highlight of my sad visit to Kanpur .