Pollution of the River Ganga by Municipal Waste: A Case Study from Patna

The present study reveals that chemical pollution around Patna in the river Ganga (av. B.O.D. 2.3 ppm) is rather insignificant. but the bacteriological pollution is alarmingly high (av. 904/ml of most probable number, MPN, count) within 10 metres of the right bank. The higher MPN count of drain water (av. 6.2 × 10⁶/ml) is drastically reduced to seven thousand times within a distance of 500 metres in the downstream. High regenerating capacity of Ganga has been ascribed to be due to the higher concentration of sbortlived isotope of radium in comparison to that of its tributaries, viz., Son and Gandak.