RIVER GANGA

ABHIJIT MITRA, SUFIA ZAMAN, NABONITA PAL

Ganga is a perennial river formed by confluence of two smaller rivers
of Devprayag. Bhagirathi is one of them originating at Gomukh in
Gangotri glacier, 3129 metres above the mean sea level. While the
other one is Alaknanda. The Ganga is called ‘Bhagirathi’ from origin
at Gomukh to Devprayag.

Gomukh is like the snout of a cow. It protrudes out of a wall 100

metres high and drops sills of ice and sheets of water. On the other
side of the snout is the Gangotri glacier which is more than 30 kms in
length, 2 kms in breadth and 300 metres in depth.

From Gomukh, the Bhagirathi flows on, now an impetuous river now
a cool, crystal, cascade, now fuming and roaring as if in anger kicking
off boulders and cracking ice. It calms down only after it joins
Alaknanda and the main Ganga River is the holiest of the many holy
rivers of India. The river Alaknanda too is joined by small rivers-
Dhauliganga at Vishnu-Prayag, the Burhi Ganga at Gupta Prayag,
Nandakini at Nandprayag Pinder at Karanprayag and by Mandakini at
Rudraprayag. All these Prayags, six in number, are in Himalayas and
are considered Holy by the Hindus. The seventh Prayag is at
Allahabad where the Ganga is joined by Yamuna. After Allahabad,
down the stream, there are no Prayags though many rivers fall into
the Ganga.

After going a distance of about 220 kms in the Himalayas, it enters

the plains at Hardwar-called ‘Haridwar’ by the Vaishnavites and
‘Hardwar’ by the Shaivites as words ‘Hari’ means Vishnu and ‘Har’
means Shiva and ‘Dwar’ means gate.
The entire area comprises of wide geographical diversity. It consists
of hilly terrain in the north up to Hardwar, low laying agricultural
alluvial plains in the middle and the deltaic region in the east before
it meets the Bay of Bengal. Its drainage basin covers one of the most
thickly populated regions of the world where the Aryan civilization
flourished for many centuries. Ganga is formed by Karmali,
Ramganga, Gandak and Kosi, all of which rise in the Himalayas and
are mainly snow fed. From the south the tributaries joining the
Ganga are the Chambal, Betwa, Tons, Ken, Son etc. which rise in the
Vindhya highlands of the central part of India.

The Ganga and its tributaries have a peculiar tendency to flow for
some distance parallel to the Himalayan ranges in deep ravines but
them they take turn and flow in deep gorges transversely. These
gorges are sometimes hundreds of metres deep and appear
awesome from above, and the river below looks like a thread.
Another interesting feature of these rivers is that the Bhagirathi
flows initially from east to west and then takes a turn from west to
east, whereas Alaknanda flows initially from west to east and then
turns, and flows east to west till it joins the Bhagirathi at Devprayag.
Thus, these two rivers flowing in opposite directions join to form a
garland at Dev-prayag.

The approximate area of the total Ganga basin 8,61404 sq. kms
(10,50,000 sq. kms including that of the Bangladesh) which is about
28 percent of total Indian territory, lying along a total length of about
2,525 km in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent.

It carries 4,93,400 million cubic metres of water per year which is

nearly 30 percent of the total water resource (16,83,000 million
cubic metres) of the whole country. It has the largest gross sown
area of nearly 58 million hectares and caters to nearly 25 percent of
Indian’s total population.