By a Correspondent | May, 2002

Filthy flows the Ganga, still. But in Kenya, they're doing something about their dangerously polluted Nairobi river.

The once-idyllic Nairobi river is threatened with extinction. For more than 100 years, when the city of Nairobi first came into being, all manner of garbage and human wastes has been dumped into the waterway.

Waterborne diseases such as typhoid and cholera are a constant threat for slum dwellers - most of whom have to rely on untreated river water to meet their daily needs.

Now the United Nations has stepped in, in the shape and form of the Nairobi River Basin Project

	There is hope for the river Nairobi, after all.

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) is sponsoring both a scientific survey of the Nairobi River Basin, as well as a public awareness campaign. The idea is to raise awareness among communities about their plight. This is the first step in public mobilization.

The ultimate aim is to provide increased availability of clean water while instituting approach public health measures.

Nitty-gritty
A community information desk on pollution is being established to distribute information about environmental and health-related hazards and waste management. A waste recycling facility will be established.

The second phase of the project zeros in on the Nairobi Dam - a hyacinth-strangled pleasure resort - and a water hyacinth utilization project, also at the dam. The project also demonstrates the value of proper practices. Polluted wetlands will be improved to upgrade the quality of impacted water systems.

That's not all.

Communities are being encouraged to safeguard and monitor the river basin as a vital resource. This phase involves an intensive public information, education and awareness campaign.

An awkward question
Kenya is a small and impoverished country that's actually doing something about its lifeline river. Here in India, we worship our revered Ganga, but it flows filthy still.

Hope is definitely on the way with the launch of a public awareness campaign in the holy city of Varanasi, conducted by the Campaign for a Clean Ganga.

But Kenya is so much further ahead.

It's embarrassing. And it leads into an uncomfortable question. Has the appropriate Indian bureaucrat rung up the United Nations to ask for assistance? Do we need their help? Or does he reckon that we're sufficiently mature to clean up our own mess?

But in that case..


With inputs from Journalist Robert Otani in Nairobi