Mallika Dureja
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The “world’s longest river cruise” began in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The 51-day luxury cruise will traverse 3,200km from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Dibrugarh, Assam, covering 27 river systems.
The three-deck MV Ganga Vilas, with 18 suites, is the latest government-promoted cruise ship in India. Modi called the Ganges cruise sector a “landmark moment” that will launch a new tourism era in India.However, environmentalists and conservationists worry the growth in excursions could permanently destroy the Ganges river dolphin’s habitat (Platanista gangetica).
The MV Ganga Vilas will cruise by Kaithi hamlet, 30km from Varanasi, at the Ganges-Gomti River confluence, where the endangered dolphin may live in deep water and slower currents. Wildlife officials counted 35 to 39 dolphins in a group with calves in October.
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The trip passes Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary in Bihar and other protected cetacean habitats. Platanista minor, the Indus river dolphin, lives in Pakistan and the Beas River in north India. Pollution, overfishing, and poaching threaten the Ganges river dolphin.
“The tours are a perilous notion in addition to all the existing hazards for the dolphins,” said Ravindra Kumar Sinha, who helped the government safeguard Gangetic dolphins in the 1990s. Improved water conditions and conservation efforts have increased their numbers to 3,200 in the Ganges and 500 in the Brahmaputra. Sinha worries cruise tourism would reverse these improvements. Gangetic dolphins may follow China’s Baiji dolphins, which were declared functionally extinct in 2006 due to Yangtze river traffic. “Cruises will severely damage dolphins, which are sensitive to noise,” he stated.
Gangetic dolphins “nearly blind” use echolocation sounds to find food in murky waters. “The underwater noise pollution due to the increased traffic of cruise, cargo vessels and mechanised boats interferes with the echolocation clicks making their very life arduous,” said Jagdish Krishnaswamy, an ecohydrologist from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore.
Krishnaswamy and three other experts used cetacean and porpoise detecting devices to log echolocation clicks and found that Gangetic dolphins’ acoustic responses were significantly altered by excessive underwater noise from motorised vehicles in 2019. Chronic noise exposure increased stress, weariness, and foraging behaviour, causing them to eat more to compensate. Disorientation from extended underwater noise increased the chance of collisions with vessels and propeller blades, resulting in injury or death.
The #GangaVilas, world's #LongestRiverCruise, is ready to take its #tourists through the places, in full swing as Hon'ble PM @narendramodi ji flagged it off.
Take a look at the largest #cruise! pic.twitter.com/JXmFl8kFoj
— Amit Rakksshit 🇮🇳 (Modi ka Parivar) (@amitrakshitbjp) January 13, 2023
2009 saw Varanasi-Kolkata cruises. The Bharatiya Janata Party government is using the World Bank-funded Jal Marg Vikas Project or National Waterway-1 (NW-1) on the Ganges to improve tourism and “eco-friendly” cargo movement.Antara cruises marketing director Kashif Siddiqui said the MV Ganga Vilas cruise sold out for two years. “We follow all environmental measures and government guidelines,” he stated. “With ecological principles at its centre, the Ganga Vilas incorporates pollution reduction and noise control technologies to celebrate the ancient rivers passed through,” according to cruise marketing.
The government wants to add 1,000 cruises to the NW-1 Ganges and NW-2 Brahmaputra routes. Environmentalists warn large-scale development would harm the riverine habitat. Critics say Varanasi’s 7km-long turtle wildlife sanctuary was denotified in 2019 to allow canal development. Activities to maintain cruise ship depths on the NW-1 Ganges route are also feared to cause severe vibrations and noise.
The Inland Waterways Authority of India’s environmental evaluation found that fish, dolphins, and turtles “usually relocate away from the dredging locations,” therefore dredging noise “may not be considerable” or cause mortality. “Unlike the ocean, river scenery is constrained, and dolphins do not have a huge region to manoeuvre at the time of dredging activity,” stated Bihar State Ganga rejuvenation, preservation, and management committee member Sunil Kumar Chaudhary.
Avli Verma, a water and energy policy expert at Pune’s Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, said the government had sacrificed environmental protections for “ease of doing business. Waterways will not be sustainable without preventative conservation today. You can’t call Ganga cruises eco-tourism while threatening Gangetic dolphins.”
