Jamshedpur, Nov 01 (PTI) Over 55 tons of garbage andwaste were removed from the Ganga by a 40-member team duringits month-long expedition in the river, said its leaderEverester Bachendri Pal. The team found the Ganga polluted all through its'Mission Gange' expedition route of 1500 km from Hardwar toPatna, Pal told reporters here Wednesday. "We have pulled out over 55 tons of garbage and waste fromthe river in course of our month-long expedition which beganfrom Hardwar on October 5 last," said the country's firstwoman who reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1984. The team left Jamshedpur on October 01. The garbage and waste pulled out of the river weredisposed of by respective municipalities of the seven townsthe team reached, she said. "We had a good experience in making aware hundreds ofpeople, including school children, who joined us at everydestination about the need for clean Ganga ," she said. She advocated intense awareness campaign to clean theriver and said the central government had already taken upseveral measures for the purpose. The 40-member team, which included Everesters PremlataAgarwal, first Indian woman to climb all the seven summit ofthe world, Hemant Gupta, Binita Soren, favoured 'Shramdaan'(voluntary work) by the common people to make the river freeof pollutants, she said. The team sailed through the river along Bijnor,Farukhabad, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Buxar and Patna. The 40-member team also included 26 employees of the TataSteel, the sponsor of the event.
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