Former IIT Professor on a Fast unto Death for Ganga

Ganga Sewa Abhiyanam, the organization that spear-heads the campaign, has listed out three major concerns - damming of the Ganga at regular intervals leading to a tardy flow; diverting more than 90 percent of the river water to canals; and towns on the banks of the river dumping their waste into the Ganga. The ongoing protest is led by the Jyotish Peeth and Dwarka Peeth Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand. He was making a sit-in at Kedar Ghat and upon sharp deterioration of his health, the district administration had admitted him to the emergency ward of SPG Hospital on March 10. He has been on intravenous drugs since then.

“Until the government considers all five demands of GSA, the stir would continue. Swami Sanand had accepted the proposal of district officials to take intravenous drugs as he knew that the government needed some time to take any decision on the demands. But even after two days of hospitalization, the government is not showing interest in giving any concrete assurance,” Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati was quoted saying to the Times of India on behalf of Swami Sanand. "Keeping the apathy of government in view, Swami Sanand would take a decision whether to stop taking intravenous drugs on Wednesday evening," he added.

Government should stop treating this issue with its usual apathy so that Agrawal would not meet the fate of Swami Nigamananda, who died after a 69-day fast to protest the rampant mining in the Ganga river bed.