Abstract
Despite accounting for only about 2.4% of the world’s geographical area
and 4% of the world’s water resources, India supports approximately
18% of the world’s human population. This puts an unprecedented strain
on the land, pushing it beyond it carrying capacity and resulting in
land degradation throughout the country. In terms of global averages,
thus, not only is water a scarce resource, but land and consequently
soil is even more so. This dual constraint poses enormous amount of
difficulty in making the Namami Gange Program a real success. The
extreme land and water constraints of the Ganga basin agriculture have
speeded up the degradation of its agricultural lands, with eroded soils
and nutrients running into the Ganga River network and seriously
affecting the rivers and other ecosystems. Thus, there is an urgent need
to devise and promote appropriate sustainable agricultural practices to
protect the basin and its agricultural lands from any further damage.
There is a need to find some long-term and better solutions to ensure
the river’s sustainability. In this review we have analyzed numerous
public as well as experts’ opinion on government policies, across both
in and out of the political realm and proposed a comprehensive strategy
based up on the actionable points excerpted out of the opinions.