The Ganga is the largest and the most important river of India. The 2,525 kilometres long river carries off the drainage of a vast basin area 861,404 kilometres covering 26.2 percent area of India's total geographical area. The watershed of the river Ganga spreads over ten States of India, namely Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.

Discharge of untreated sewage from urban centres is a major cause of river water quality degradation. Since local authorities are not able to cope with the problem due to paucity of resources, Govt. of India came forward and launched a programme for cleaning the river Ganga, called Ganga Action Plan.

In Ganga Action Plan Phase-1 ,35 Sewage Treatment Plant's were planned (3 STP's in Uttaranchal, 10 STP's in Uttar Pradesh, 7 STP's in Bihar, and 15 STP's in West Bengal). Among them, 32 are commissioned and 29 were found functioning. The sewage treatment plants found under loaded are Jajmau-Kanpur, DLW-Varanasi, Naini-Allahabad whereas over loaded plants are Dinapur and Bhagwanpur at Varanasi. The sewage treatment plants need. upgradation are Swargashram- Rishikesh, Kankhal-Haridwar, Jajmau -Kanpur, Bhatpara-E, Titagarh and Panihati in West Bengal.

In the present report an attempt is also made to identify the gap in wastewater generation and treatment in the entire Ganga basin. The total wastewater generation from 222 towns in Ganga basin is 8250 MLD, out of which 2538 MLD is directly discharged into the Ganga River, 4491 MLD disposed into tributaries of river Ganga and 1220 MLD is disposed on land or low lying areas.

We hope the findings of the study will be useful to all concerned with the wastewater management and water quality improvement programmes for rivers in India.