The Kumbh Mela ceremony is believed to be the largest religious gathering on earth with more than 100 million Hindu pilgrims attending to bath in the holy waters of the Ganges to wash away their sins. However, due to the fast phase of industrialization and urbanization in India, a lot of effluent and sewage was - and still is � generated. This has resulted in discharge of sewage into Indian rivers, untreated or only partially treated, because in many cases, there are no effluent treatment plants. In order to protect the health and safety of the large number of pilgrims bathing in the River, the State Government carried out various measures to increase the quality of the water in the Ganges like curbing the discharge of untreated industrial effluents into the river. To measure the effect of the government's actions, the local Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) needed real time water quality monitoring network across the Ganges River basin and, to that ending, a collaboration with s::can was started. s::can together with local alliances: Aaxis Nano / Tritec / Techspan installed ten unmanned remote floating monitoring stations fed with solar panels which were equipped with different sensors to monitor ten parameters (TSS, COD, BOD, EC, pH, Temp, NH4, DO, Chloride, NO3-N) and con::cube terminals. The on-line data was validated locally at each station with moni::tool software features prepared for real time event detection and contamination alarming. All real time data was automatically transferred through a GPRS network to a central receiving station located at CPCB central office at New Delhi. This gave the CPCB the necessary insights to take precautionary actions.

Real time monitoring of Ganges River basin during Kumbh Mela ceremony

248th National Meeting (2014)

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