Ganga Water Is "Self-Purifying" And Has "Ability To Cure Diseases" Reports A New Scientific Study

Indian scientists from the Chandigarh-based Institute of Microbial Technology have approved the scientific basis of the puzzling ‘special power’ of the water of Ganga, which is believed as “Brahm Dravya”or “Spiritual Elixir”.

Ganges have self-purifying properties
For the first time, the microbiologists have discovered several Bacteriophages that keeps the waters of Ganges pure. A bacteriophage is a virus that eats bacteria. This solves the mystery for the self-purifying properties of Ganga water. “Ganges not only houses novel viromes but also includes unexplored double-stranded DNA viruses as found in the analysis of the fresh water,” says Dr Shanmugam Mayilraj, Senior Principal Scientist at the CSIR- Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh as reported by Indian Express. He further adds to it and says, ”these novel viromes were never reported earlier, and these bacteriophages are active against many clinical isolates and can be used against multi-drug resistant or MDR infections”.

Ability To Cure Diseases:
Dr Mayilraj and his team have discovered 20-25 fascinating viruses which can be useful in curing Tuberculosis (Mycobacterium), Typhoid (Salmonella), Pneumonia (Klebsiella and Acinetobacter), Cholera(Vibrio), Diarrhoea (Aeromonas), Meningitis (Crononacter), Dysentery (Shigella), etc. “Recent analysis has shown that the water is enriched with several bacterial groups like Oscillator Phyceae, Flavobacteria, Sphingobacteria, Proteobacteria, while sediments are enriched with ßproteobacteria, a-proteobacteria, Clostridia, Actinobacteria, Sphingobacteria and Deltaproteobacteria,” Dr Mayilraj told Indian Science Journal.

The samples were already collected by the IMTECH team during the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon period from the Haridwar to Varanasi. Another sample from Yamuna and Narmada will be collected as well for a comparative study to see how much Ganges water is different.

The study board:
The study was deputed by Federal Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation Ministry, headed by Uma Bharti in November 2014. Nagpur-based National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), National Botanical Research Institute, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research and Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic plants were also a part of this project.
The compiled report of all the labs involved in the study will be submitted to the government by December 2016.