On January 4, 2026, the Samajwadi Party (SP) raised serious concerns about the Namami Gange Mission’s sewage treatment efforts. SP spokesperson Ram Pratap Singh said that almost 45% of the planned sewage treatment infrastructure is either uninstalled or not working. This comes despite over 10 years of implementation and large financial backing. The mission’s target is to reach 7,000 million litres per day (MLD) of sewage treatment capacity by December 2026. However, as per government data, only around 3,800 MLD capacity is currently operational. This leaves a huge gap of 3,194 MLD — similar to the untreated sewage of big cities like Kolkata or Chennai. Singh highlighted that cities such as Kanpur, Varanasi, and Prayagraj are still overwhelmed by waste. He said Kanpur’s Bingawan sewage treatment plant (STP), which has a capacity of 210 MLD, is reported as non-compliant for BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), a key measure of organic pollution. Another SP spokesperson, Nasser Salim, focused on Varanasi, which produces 300-400 MLD of sewage daily. Varanasi has STPs with a combined capacity of about 362 MLD, but still faces shortages during peak times. Salim added, "Namami Gange sanctioned 203 STP projects aiming to treat 6,255 MLD of domestic sewage, but only 127 are finished, delivering 3,446 MLD — just 55% completion physically." The Namami Gange Programme, launched in 2014, is the central government’s flagship project to clean and protect the Ganga river. It focuses on reducing pollution with sewage treatment and industrial waste monitoring alongside river rejuvenation. Despite this, the SP’s claims point to significant gaps in infrastructure and progress, causing concern over the mission’s ability to meet its ambitious goals by the year-end deadline.