Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh recently said that despite several measures adopted by the government to clean river Ganga and make it pollution-free, it cannot be cleaned in the next five years unless and until awareness is created for the common man. Having invested Rs900 crore and 20 years gone by, the government has been able to treat only 1/3rd of the sewage across the 2,500km stretch of Ganga. The rest flows back into the river, untreated.