Govt looks to crowdsourcing to clean the Ganga

New Delhi: The government plans to crowdsource images of dirty spots along river Ganga as part of its efforts to clean the river.

People can send mobile clicks of such spots through an Android mobile app, which will be collated with satellite images to create a checklist of waste dumps in the Ganga basin and could be used by decision makers to prioritise interventions.

This data will be uploaded on the website that was launched on Tuesday after the National Mission to Clean Ganga under the ministry of water resources signed a pact with the National Remote Sensing Centre of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).

The portal Bhuvan Ganga will show various geospatial layers related to the Ganges

Here, the portal shows pollution points as photographed by an observer along the Ganga basin. An Android mobile app collects field data from people.

There are various other data that can be accessed from the portal, including total suspended solids in the river during pre monsoon and post monsoon season.

Here, one can see the cities as sources of pollution for the Ganga.

On Tuesday, the two parties decided to work together in the areas of applying geospatial technology in the various aspects of Clean Ganga initiative, including use of geospatial technology for water quality monitoring, development of mobile application for enabling community participation in monitoring or up-linking of field data, customizing Bhuvan geoportal for visualizing, and analysis of datasets related to Ganga basin.

The water resoruces ministry will also co-ordinate necessary linkages with other agencies for maintaining a geo-spatial database and web-based applications for river water quality monitoring.

In May, the cabinet approved an outlay of ₹ 20,000 crore for the next five years for the clean Ganga project, which was a manifesto promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The government’s plan of implementation was modifed to involve people living on the banks of the river to achieve better results.