“Earlier, there was dirt everywhere. The water smelled bad, and people avoided coming here,” says Jay Kumar Nisad, a resident, standing near the Sangam in Prayagraj, where the rivers Ganga and Yamuna meet. “Waste floated on the surface, flowers and plastic collected along the banks, and the smell stayed in the air. For those of us who live here, it became a serious problem.”

For Kumar and his community, the river is not a distant landmark but a living presence. It is woven into everyday routines, including morning baths, evening walks, prayer, livelihood, and memory. As pollution increased over the years, this relationship began to strain. What was once a place of comfort slowly became a place of discomfort. People came less often, stayed for shorter periods, and murmured about how much had changed.

Prayagraj’s experience is part of a much broader challenge facing India’s waterways. Across the country, rivers and lakes have struggled under the combined weight of rapid urbanisation, gaps in sanitation infrastructure, and the discharge of untreated waste. One of the most striking examples is the Yamuna, which flows through several states before joining the Ganga. Despite decades of efforts, it remains one of the most polluted stretches of river in India, particularly within the National Capital Region, where untreated sewage, industrial effluents and solid waste continue to enter the water. 

According to monthly water quality reports from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, faecal coliform levels, an indicator of untreated sewage, soared to 92,000 units per 100 ml in December 2025, far exceeding the safe limit of 2,500 units and reflecting persistent contamination from drains and shortfalls in sewage treatment plants (STPs).

Long-term assessments show that the river’s health has steadily worsened in recent years. In January 2025, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), a key measure of organic pollution, was recorded at about 70 mg/l, compared with the healthy standard of 3 mg/l, and faecal coliform counts in parts of the river have reached millions of units per 100 ml, underscoring the sheer scale of untreated waste entering the system.

Experts point out that this pollution does not originate in the river itself but primarily in the network of drains and sewage outfalls that discharge directly into it. For example, Delhi generates hundreds of millions of litres of sewage daily, but significant gaps remain in treatment capacity, meaning large volumes still flow untreated into drains such as the Najafgarh, the very conduit that contributes a large portion of the Yamuna’s pollution.

Many water bodies have become choked with silt, sewage, and floating waste, losing both their ecological balance and their place in community life. Addressing this problem requires steady, technical work carried out consistently over long periods of time. Few understand that better than Gaurav Chopra, who left behind a consulting career nearly two decades ago to work at the frontlines of India’s water crisis.

‘Every city had a lake or a drain that was screaming to be cleaned’

The turning point came at the waters of Dal Lake.

At the time, Gaurav was returning from the corporate world, searching for work that felt more tangible and rooted. His uncles, former master mariners from the Navy, knew water systems and navigation. When an opportunity arose to bid for the mechanised cleaning of Dal Lake, the alignment felt natural.

“We understood water, and we understood solid waste management,” he tells The Better India. “And I was at a stage where I wanted to do something more grassroots and impactful. So when the opportunity came, we decided to bid for it. That was the first contract we ran.”

Dal Lake, long celebrated for its beauty, was struggling with invasive weeds, silt build-up and floating waste. But stepping into that project revealed a sobering truth.

“The problem was not limited to one lake. Once we began working there and proposing solutions, we started looking elsewhere. Literally every city had a lake or a drain that was screaming to be cleaned,” he explains.

The early years, however, were far from straightforward. “It was a very slow journey,” he admits. “The first five to seven years were tough. It took time for authorities to understand why mechanised cleaning was necessary at........

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