Yamuna took the centre stage during the Delhi poll campaign, when AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal accused Haryana of polluting the river’s water flowing into Delhi. Now, with BJP at the helm in Delhi, the task of cleaning the river demands swift and coordinated action. A report by Pawan Kumar Bansal
During Delhi assembly elections, Yamuna pollution turned into a major campaign issue with Arvind Kejriwal alleging that Haryana had poisoned Yamuna water coming from its side and flowing into Delhi. Haryana CM Naib Saini challenged the claim of Kejriwal and even drank Yamuna-water to demonstrate that it is fit for drinking. Now with BJP having formed the government in Delhi, urgent steps need to be taken for cleaning Yamuna.
Prime Minister Narender Modi has also promised that Yamuna will be cleaned and developed on the pattern of Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati riverfront. With Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and the Union government under BJP rule, the cleanup should progress swiftly.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has rightly said that handing over the security of Yamuna to the territorial army is under consideration to check encroachments and dumping of waste in it. During the last about two decades, several schemes were made and crores were spent for cleaning Yamuna but neither it got cleaned nor were encroachments and dumping of waste checked. Dr Shiv Singh Rawat, former Superintending Engineer, Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Haryana, and convener of Yamuna Bachao Abhiyan, said that political disputes that previously hindered clean-up efforts may no longer pose a hurdle. Rawat has done Ph.D from IIT Delhi on “Yamuna river and water resources of Haryana.” However, the success of the initiative will depend on strict enforcement, sustained financial support, and active public participation.
Despite renewed political commitment, several challenges remain. The enforcement of pollution control laws has been weak, allowing industries and residents to discharge waste into the Yamuna unchecked. Unauthorized colonies, which continue to expand, lack proper sewage systems, leading to massive amounts of untreated waste entering into the river. Encroachments along the riverbanks further reduce its natural flow. Coordination between Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh also remains a critical issue, as multiple states contribute to the river’s pollution.
Going into the background of the issue, R.K.Garg, retired Engineer-in-Chief, Irrigation, Haryana and former member of Delhi Jal Board, opines, “ Ecologically, the stretch of the Yamuna river in Delhi was killed,” adding that “aquatic life survived in Delhi stretch of the river at least till 1970.” As our political system started having stakes in the unplanned growth of the city, the river started dying. Unfortunately, the administrative infrastructure not only tamely yielded to the political authority but gradually started having its own stakes in non-compliance. DDA, the agency given the responsibility of urban planning of the city, failed to control the dynamics of urban growth and it led to coming up of thousands of unauthorized human habitations across the city over the time.”
These areas had come up without any sewerage infrastructure or any other facilities, the waste generated in these areas finally reached Yamuna, which, paradoxically, turned into a natural drain of the city. In 2006, 46% of Delhi areas had no sewerage infrastructure, perhaps something exceptional in reference to any national capital of the world. It’s not that elected representatives were ignorant about the malady, they felt compelled to join the game being part of the competitive populism. Besides entry of untreated waste, both domestic and industrial, the river suffered because of the rampant encroachment of its floodplains. Historically, Yamuna waters were shared between erstwhile Punjab, now Haryana, and UP. Delhi got Yamuna share for the first time when in May, 1994, an MOU was signed by the basin states. Delhi, however, had been using these waters since 1930 when its first WTP, namely Chanrawal, was completed.
With increasing demands of Delhi, all releases of fresh water downstream Wazirabad stopped and the river stretch from Wazirabad to Okhla started receiving mostly the untreated sewage, including the industrial waste, through various drains of Delhi, converting this portion of the river into an open sewer instead. Since it would not have been possible to provide sewerage- infrastructure in the unplanned habitations quickly, and the growth of such habitations kept growing, things worsened instead of improving.
