OUR RIVERS
MAJOR RIVERS IN INDIA : ESSAY WRITING TOPICS
Himalaya, the highest mountain range in the world is the crown of India .Still it has not given the longest or the widest river to the country. The longest in the world are Amazon in South America and Nile in Africa. In length Brahmaputra of India is 28th while river Ganga is 31st. Indus, of course is 26th.But it is no more in India. By the time it is known as Sindhu it flows through Pakistan. It has five tributaries, three of which originate in the Indian region of the Himalayas and flow through the Indian territory before joining Sindhu in Pakistan. None of the Himalayan rivers crosses the Vindhyachal range. None flows through the Southern Peninsula.
The main rivers of the Himalayan ranges are sindhu, Brahmaputra, Ganga and Jamuna, Sindhu and its tributaries all origin in the Himalayas and criss cross both India and Pakistan. The origin of Sindhu is mount Kailas. It ultimately falls into the Arabian Sea in Sindh. The Brahmaputra rises in Western Tibet and flows over to the North- Eastern region to flow into the Bay of Bengal. Ganga is considered as the most pious river in India. It rises from Gangotri while Jamuna its tributary rises from Jamnotri. Both of them flow through the heartland of India. Jamuna joins Ganga at Prayag and then the Ganga flowing through Bihar and Bengal meets the Bay of Bengal near Calcutta.
Besides these perennial rivers we have many in the South and the West. While the Himalayan Rivers cover about 70% of the inflow of water the Southern ones cover about 30 %. All the Southern and West coast rivers are rain fed and so may be called seasonal. After the rainy season they are just lean streams, Narmada and Tapti rise in the North and flow to the Gulf of Cambay in Gujarat, The Shravati, the Netravati, and the Bharata puzha, the Periyar and the Pamba originate in the Western Ghats. Crossing the West Coast they join the Arabian Sea. The Krishna, the Godavari, the Pennar and the Cauvery too originate in the Western Ghats. But crossing the Peninsula, flowing through the four Southern states fall in the Bay of Bengal
With so many rivers and their tributaries there should be no dearth of potable water in the country. But the truth is otherwise. Most of these rivers are so much polluted that their water does not remain worth drinking. The waste of two public sectors industries IDPL and BHEL falls in the Ganga at Rishikesh. Again at Kanpur it meets the same fate. In Bihar and Bengal it receives the effluence of a very large number of industries. Similar is the fate of Jamuna. In its 48 km round of Delhi it receives 9200 kgs of chemicals, metals and solid wastes of industries every day. The 17 big drains bringing all filth of Delhi join Jamuna. By the time it reaches Mathura the water is not even worth bathing.
The songs sung in the praise of Indian rivers carry no sense now. They cause more of disease than giving relief to the people. They have become the store of filth of the whole country. Central Government has formed Central Ganga Authority. It is trying to remove and check the pollution of the Ganga. There should actually be a Central River authority to cleanse all the rivers of the country.