India has launched the world's longest river cruise sailing from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Traveling through the course of 51 days, traveling 3,200 km via Dhaka in Bangladesh to Dibrugarh in Assam crossing over 27 rivers.

Environmentalists and conservationists however have expressed a different view of this luxury cruise which could damage the habitat of the Ganges river dolphin. As per the experts, these Ganges dolphin already faces a number of threats including water pollution, excessive water extraction, and poaching.

This luxury cruise will pass through the Kaithi Village from Varanasi at the confluence of the Ganges and Gomti Rivers, where the deep water and slow current movements around the intersection provide a safe habitat to the Ganges Dolphin. The wildlife officials have spotted a pod with calves estimating the number of dolphins 35 to 39 at the intersection during October.

The journey will also set a course apart from the Kaithi village covering through the other protected cetacean habitats including the Vikaramshila Gangetic dolphin Sanctuary in Bihar.

Platanista gangetica is one of the two freshwater dolphin species in south Asia, alongside Platanista minor or the Indus river dolphin, found in Pakistan and the Beas River in north India.

 “The cruises are a dangerous proposition in addition to all the existing risks for the dolphins, there’s no doubt that disturbances from cruises will gravely impact the dolphins, which are sensitive to noise”, said by Biologist Ravindra Kumar Sinha.

Sinha was a conservationist whose efforts led the government to title Gangetic dolphins as a protected species in the 1990s. And the number of these dolphins has increased by 3200 in the Ganges and 500 in Brahmaputra, but Sinha fears that cruise tourism will decrease the numbers.

These Gangetic dolphins are almost blind and use echolocation clicks for navigation in the murky waters and forage for food.  “The underwater noise pollution due to the increased traffic of cruise, cargo vessels, and mechanized boats interferes with the echolocation clicks making their very existence arduous,” said the ecohydrologist from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore, Jagdish Krishnaswamy.

A study in 2019, founds that major alterations to the acoustic responses of Gangetic dolphins from high underwater noise due to motorized vessels, and chronic noise exposure elevated the stress levels which further leads to fatigue and change in foraging behavior causing them to feed more to compensate for energy loss.  

Kashif Siddiqui the marketing director of Antara said that the company has taken all the environmental precautions and government guidelines, and the company constructed the MV Ganga Vilas. “With sustainable principles at its heart, the Ganga Vilas incorporates pollution prevention and noise control technologies to honor the ancient rivers traveled through”.

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