Ganga Falls to 66.42 m; Silt and Waste Cover Asi, Dashashwamedh and Other Ghats

The Ganga at Varanasi has eased enough for stone platforms and stairs to show again, but the river has left a thick reminder behind. With the gauge near 66.42 metres on Tuesday morning, silt, flowers, plastic and other flood waste still blanketed stretches of Asi, Dashashwamedh and several of the city’s 84 ghats.

Volunteers linked to the Namami Gange effort moved early on Dashashwamedh. Rajesh Shukla said he and his team gathered debris from the bank, stairs and platform and handed the material to a Varanasi Nagar Nigam crew for disposal. The point, he argued, was simple: what the flood carried onto the steps must not be swept straight back into the channel.

At Asi and the adjoining reaches, the same pattern was visible — a crust of silt on steps that had been underwater for weeks, mixed with ritual offerings that the current had pushed ashore. Some locals and ghat workers were already trying to push loose silt toward the waterline. Others wanted a fuller municipal drive before the next spell of rain softens the mess again.

Varanasi’s ghat line is long, and the work will not finish in a single shift. Asi’s lower platforms, the busy ceremonial band around Dashashwamedh, and quieter intermediate landings all show different depths of deposit. Where the silt is only a few centimetres, brooms and buckets may do. Where it has packed into a soft carpet, pumps, scrapers and tractor-loads become the practical answer.

Shukla’s warning was ecological as much as civic. Waste left on the banks, he said, can wash back into the river and add to the load on aquatic life. Flower packets and plastic are not holy residue once they choke a drain or settle in a still pocket of water. The flood, in his telling, had simply returned the city’s own discards to the steps.

Municipal teams have been active at other points along the riverfront in recent days, using machinery where silt banks are heavy. Tuesday’s volunteer hand-over at Dashashwamedh sits alongside that wider clean-up rather than replacing it. Shopkeepers and priests who depend on clear access for pilgrims have a direct stake: blocked stairs mean shorter darshan lines and slower boat landings whenever navigation resumes.

Boating itself remains constrained while flow and level stay outside the comfort band used by local operators. Cruise and ordinary boats usually wait for lower, calmer water; for now the visible story on land is the silt line, not the mid-stream traffic.

For residents watching the gauge day by day, 66.42 metres is a relief after the flood peak, not a full reset. Platforms have reappeared, but the city still has to lift what the river left behind — and decide, ghat by ghat, whether that load goes to a municipal dump or drifts back into the stream.

Nagar Nigam’s next test is coverage. A clean Dashashwamedh platform means little if Asi’s lower steps stay ankle-deep in silt through the week. Coordinated crews, ward-wise routes and a clear dump point will decide whether Tuesday’s volunteer effort becomes a citywide clear-out or a single photogenic stretch.