Imagine walking along the Yamuna without your holding breath and the smell of garbage, sewage and effluents in the water failing to hit you in the face.
Imagine wanting to be near the Yamuna, which has over the years become so polluted that some experts say it is dead.
Politicians and officials in the Union and Delhi governments have showed this vision of the Yamuna so many times over the past two decades that Delhiites have now begun to lose hope. Thousands of crores have been spent on projects to clean the river, but there hasn’t been any perceptible change.
Bad to worse
“The river has gone from bad to worse. There have been so many plans, but they have not been implemented seriously,” said Manoj Misra, the convenor of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan.
Now, there is another plan.
A two-year, Rs.6,000 crore “Yamuna Turnaround Plan” has been prepared by the Delhi Jal Board. According to the Delhi government sources, the plan was presented to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday and will be submitted to Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti next week.
The Yamuna Turnaround Plan covers everything, from preventing sewage from falling into the river to reclaiming the banks of the Yamuna from encroachment.
The comprehensive plan, a copy of which is with The Hindu , aims to prevent “even a single drop of untreated water” from falling into the river. As per sources, the plan was drafted after a series of meetings by Delhi Jal Board chairperson Kapil Mishra, officials and stakeholders.
The Yamuna runs a length of 48 km in Delhi after entering at Palla, two per cent of its entire length, but gets 70 per cent of all its pollutants from the Capital, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
For the Yamuna Turnaround Plan, the Delhi Jal Board started out by identifying the sources of pollution. Point sources, including sewage and industrial effluents, as well as non-point sources like solid waste dumping and sewage from unauthorised colonies and slums along the drains were identified as top offenders. Pollutants from illegal slaughterhouses and laundries also flow into the drains. Untreated water from 22 major drains and several smaller ones falls into the river.
The Yamuna cannot be cleaned till its drains are tackled, the comprehensive plan acknowledges. All drains, that is four major ones and 18 smaller ones, have been mapped and separate strategies have been formed to prevent them from polluting the river. Existing sewage treatment infrastructure will be upgraded, and newer treatment plants set up.
The plan also recognises the fact that riverbanks need to be public spaces, not forgotten parts of the city. A total of 120 km of public spaces along the large drains — Najafgarh, Supplementary, Shahdara and Barapullah — and 9,000 hectares of an ecologically-sensitive riverfront will be developed. To save water, 10 large freshwater reservoirs will be set up.
Greenways
The plan also makes provision for development of greenways. According to the plan, 50m to 200 m wide greenways will be developed along the Yamuna as well as all the drains and streets leading to them.
Meanwhile, the digitally manipulated pictures of a future Yamuna, one clean enough to bathe in, used in the plan seem like a dream.
The river is not much of a river today. But, imagine walking down a winding pathway, lined with lush greens, along the river or one of its drain.
Crores have been spent to clean the river, but there hasn’t been any change
