Ganga shifts at Gangotri, lake formed posing danger to downstream areas

The mystic Ganga has baffled the religious gurus and scientists once again. Its traditional mouth, Gaumukh on Gangotri glacier has dried up and a new source has emerged around 20 meters away with a formation of a glacial lake threatening to burst.

Updated on: Jul 18, 2012, 16:45:53 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The mystic Ganga has baffled the religious gurus and scientists once again. Its traditional mouth, Gaumukh on Gangotri glacier has dried up and a new source has emerged around 20 meters away with a formation of a glacial lake threatening to burst.

“The water flow has shifted 20 meters left of Gaumukh but there is no reason to worry,” said IP Singh, Deputy Director of Gangotri National Sanctuary in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand. Navin Juval, a glaciologist at Ahmedabad based National Research Laboratory, however, said the glacial lakes are temporary and there is always a danger of their bursting depending on the volume of the water in it.

Gaumukh is the point from water from Gangotri glacier flows into Bhagirathi river, a major tributary of river Ganga and has a huge religious value for millions of Hindus because of being considered the purest source of holy Ganga water. Gaumukh has been mentioned in various Hindu religious books such as Vedas and bathing there for Hindus means absolving their sins.

This year, after prolonged summer and with onset of heavy monsoon showers, pilgrims and Uttarakhand forest department officials were surprised this week to find that the water was not flowing from original Gaumukh and was oozing out from another source. It had resulted in formation of a glacial lake.

Gaumukh

The terminus of Gangotri glacier resemble a cow’s mouth and hence its name Gaumukh.

Gaumukh is origin of river Bhagirathi, which forms Ganga at Devprayag, after merging with river Alakananda.

Gaumukh is about 18 kms from the town of Gangotri.

Gangotri is considered Bhagirathi’s main water source even though many other glaciers in the basin provide water to the river.

“There is nothing unusual as glaciers oscillate resulting in shift of its snout (from where melted water flows out),” explained a senior scientist at National Institute of Hydrology at Roorkee. Uttarkashi based Harshvanti Bhist, a mountaineer and Gangotri glacier researcher, said Gaumukh had been receding as result of Gangotri glacier’s snout moving backwards and shifting its place.

Local ecologists say it has happened mainly because of abnormally high local temperature resulting from deforestation and increased human presence. “Impact of humans is clearly visible at Gaumukh,” said Rajender Singh, member of National Ganga River Basin Authority. For Bhisht, who trekked the entire glacier in 2010, the increase in local temperature has resulted in Gangotri glacier now having number of glacial lakes showing its impact on Gaumukh.

But, what has baffled many scientists is that the huge shift and lake formation has taken place despite the data showing decline in the rate of oscillation and melting of the Gangotri glacier. "Only after visiting the glacier we can find out what has actually happened,” the scientist, who was not willing to be named, said.

Anil Baluni, former vice chairperson of Uttarakhand Forest Advisory Council described the activity as an indication of changing Himalayan ecology and said it puts a question mark over the future of river Ganga.

This has happened at the time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has constituted an expert group headed by planning commission member B K Chaturvedi to recommend short term measures to ensure minimum water flow of major tributaries of river Ganga --- Alakananda and Bhagirathi. Several religious gurus have been opposing construction of hydro electricity dams on these rivers saying it will destroy the religious heritage of the river.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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