Namami Gange: Polluting Industries 70% Compliant | CLAT GK

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 13 OCTOBER 2026

Compliance among Grossly Polluting Industries (GPIs) in the Ganga and Yamuna basins has risen from 39% in 2017 to 70% in 2025, according to a release issued by the Ministry of Jal Shakti through the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on Tuesday, 13 October 2026. Titled “Industrial Pollution Abatement: Sustainability through Regulations under Namami Gange”, the release reviews nine years of the Annual Inspection mechanism for GPIs, run under the Namami Gange Programme with the support of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

The headline figure for the Ganga basin is sharper still: compliance there rose from 39% to 86% between 2017 and 2025, while the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) load discharged by these industries fell by 72.46%. The release presents this as a shift from “periodic inspection to continuous compliance” — regulation as a cycle of inspection, identification, corrective action and follow-up rather than one-off enforcement.

What the 2025 inspection cycle covered

According to the PIB release, the annual inspection began in 2017 with the CPCB, described as the “National Regulatory Authority”, and aims at 100% inspection of GPIs in the Ganga basin through third-party agencies such as technical institutes of national importance. Reports are submitted online through mobile applications and web portals.

In the 2025 cycle, 3,703 GPIs were assessed — 1,296 in the Ganga basin and 2,407 in the Yamuna basin. The exercise covered 113 districts across six States and one Union Territory, with the industries having potential to discharge into 46 tributaries and sub-tributaries of the Ganga and Yamuna. 25 technical institutes took part in 2025; 40 institutes have been nominated for the 2026 cycle. Each inspection team includes at least two experts from a technical institute, an officer of the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB), and participation from the State Mission for Clean Ganga or District Ganga Committees.

The methodology goes beyond a visual check. Inspectors test compliance against the Consent to Operate issued by the SPCB, sample effluent treatment plant (ETP) inlets, outlets and aeration tanks, measure flow, pH, BOD, COD, TSS and TDS, verify connectivity of Online Continuous Effluent Monitoring Systems (OCEMS), examine receiving drains and groundwater, look for bypasses and profile Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) units. Bypasses or defunct ETPs are reported with geo-tagged photo or video evidence.

The numbers, 2017 to 2025

Across the assessed GPIs, the release reports that compliance rose from 39% (2017) to 70% (2025); the number of operational GPIs stood at 3,154 in 2025, up from 888 in 2017; and the BOD load declined from 26 tonnes per day (TPD) to 12.02 TPD. In the Ganga basin alone, BOD load fell from 26 TPD to 7.16 TPD (a 72.46% reduction) and effluent discharge fell from 349 million litres per day (MLD) to 274.88 MLD (a 21.24% reduction). Non-compliant units face Show Cause Notices and closure action by the SPCBs, as applicable.

The release also describes a targeted drive: in 2022, 246 GPIs were identified as top polluters; 17 sector workshops followed, 222 units submitted action plans, and an estimated 65% reduction in pollution load was recorded in 2022–23 over 2021–22 (from 18.68 TPD to 6.381 TPD).

From pollution control to pollution prevention

The release lays weight on sector-specific Charters for five sectors — Pulp & Paper, Sugar, Distillery, Textile and Tannery. Together these represented around 70% of GPIs in the Ganga basin and 88% of the total pollution load in the earlier assessment. The Charter for Water Recycling and Pollution Prevention sets measurable targets — lower water consumption, ETP and reverse-osmosis upgrades, and in the longer term recycling of water — with third-party technical involvement in planning and monitoring.

Results cited in the release include the sugar sector cutting freshwater consumption from 155 to 58 litres per tonne of cane between 2017 and 2025, and 60 recycled-fibre Pulp & Paper mills operating on ZLD. The assessment records no black-liquor discharge from paper mills, no effluent discharge from distilleries, roughly 719 million litres of groundwater saved per day, and improved water quality in tributaries such as the Ramganga, Kosi, Dhela and Bahela.

For industrial clusters, Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) provide shared treatment. In 2025, 41 CETPs were assessed in the Ganga and Yamuna main-stem States; 40 were operational, with a combined capacity of 514.53 MLD, utilisation of 286.31 MLD, and 27 complying with prescribed norms. The release recommends chemical-management systems and low-salt dyes for textile clusters, and cleaner production and mechanical desalting for tannery clusters.

Analysis: what the data does and does not show

The story is a useful case study in regulatory design. Three features stand out. First, independent verification: using technical institutes rather than only the regulator’s own staff reduces the risk of capture and adds laboratory evidence. Second, technology-based monitoring: OCEMS and geo-tagged evidence move enforcement from occasional visits towards continuous data. Third, prevention over treatment: the Charters target water use and process design, not just end-of-pipe discharge.

Read carefully, the figures also need context. The GPI universe grew sharply over the period (888 operational units in 2017 against 3,154 in 2025), so the compliance rate compares different sets of factories. Industrial effluent is also only one part of river pollution: untreated municipal sewage is widely recognised as a major source, and the release itself deals only with the industrial stream. A CLAT passage could ask exactly this kind of question — whether a rising percentage, on its own, proves that the river is cleaner.