Scarcity of Gangajal in post offices

Almost four weeks after Union Minister of State for Communications (Independent charge) Manoj Sinha launched the distribution of Gangajal (holy Ganga water) from the GPO, Patna, there is now a dearth of holy water in the post offices of the state capital.

The scarcity of Ganga water is being attributed, ironically, to heavy rain in Uttarakhand, as it has become increasingly   difficult to fill the bottles due to heavy rain/floods in the hilly state. No one in the post offices here has any idea when the supply of Gangajal will be restored.

Gangajal was being sourced at Gangotri and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand) and made available (in bottles) to anyone who wanted it for religious purposes. The decision to sell Gangajal from the GPO was earlier taken when Ravi Shankar Prasad was the communications minister.

The idea was to boost the sagging economy of post-offices. Under this plan, a separate shop named Post Shoppe was launched on the GPO campus, where anyone could buy Gangajal. Of late, due to heavy floods following torrential rain in Uttarakhand, the process to collect pristine water from the origins of Ganga has been adversely affected.