Area 861,404 sq km

Covers 11 states (Uttarakhand, U.P., M.P., Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Delhi

Population of the basin: 600 million Indians (close to half of India’s population)

40 percent of the country’s GDP is generated in this region.

The basin provides more than one-third of India’s surface water, 90 percent of which is used for irrigation.

The basin is also home to some of the poorest sections of India’s population, with more than 200 million people living below the national poverty line.

The Ganga’s mainstem runs through 50 major Indian cities, almost all of which have a population of more than 50,000 people

Domestic sewage accounts for 70-80 percent of the wastewater that flows into the Ganga, Industrial effluents add another 15 percent