the Ganga Action Plan (gap) has proved to be a failure in West Bengal, with the river's pollution levels increasing drastically in the Kolkata metropolitan areas (kma), despite Rs 158 crores spent in 15 years. This and many other startling revelations are part of a recent audit report from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (cag). "Testing indicates that as of March 2000 the water quality has declined much below the levels which prevailed when the cleaning programme was started,' states the cag report. According to it, execution of gap in kma is marred with heedless decisions. Sewage treatment schemes were prepared on the basis of the area's population instead of the actual quantity of sewage being dumped in the river. As a result, eight towns generating 34.33 million litres of sewage per day (mld) were left out. There were glaring irregularities even in the estimation of sewage generation