Photo: Collected-
Metropolis Desk-
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has officially launched the “world’s longest river cruise” from the city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. The luxury voyage will last 51 days, traveling 3,200km via Dhaka in Bangladesh to Dibrugarh in Assam, crossing 27 river systems.
The three-deck MV Ganga Vilas, with 18 suites, is the latest venture in a trend for cruise tourism in India being promoted by the government. Modi hailed the cruise industry on the Ganges as a “landmark moment,” which will herald a new age of tourism in India.
However, environmentalists and conservationists say the rise in cruises could do lasting damage to the habitat of the Ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica), reports The Guardian.
The MV Ganga Vilas will pass through Kaithi village, 30km from Varanasi, at the confluence of the Ganges and Gomti River, where the deep water and slower currents around the intersection provide a safe habitat for the endangered dolphin. In October, wildlife officials spotted a pod with calves, and put the number of dolphins in the area at 35 to 39.
It is one of a number of protected cetacean habitats on the route of the cruise, including the Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary in Bihar.
Platanista gangetica is one of the two freshwater dolphin species in south Asia, alongside Platanista minor or the Indus river dolphin, found in Pakistan and the Beas River in north India. The Ganges river dolphin faces a number of threats, including water pollution, excessive water extraction, and poaching.
“The cruises are a dangerous proposition in addition to all the existing risks for the dolphins,” said Ravindra Kumar Sinha, whose conservation efforts led the government to designate Gangetic dolphins as a protected species in the 1990s.
