Here's Delhi Govt's Six-Point Action Plan To Clean Yamuna By 2025

Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal on November 19 announced that the State Government has chalked out a six-point action plan to clean the Yamuna River to bathing level come February 2025.

While explaining the innovations and steps to be taken to clean the Yamuna, Kejriwal revealed that the Government is planning to set up new sewage treatment plants and also upgrade and increase the capacity of the existing ones as well.

How It Will Help?

"This will increase our sewage treatment capacity from around 600 million gallons of waste water a day to 750 MGD-800 MGD," Kejriwal was quoted as saying by Moneycontrol.

The Delhi CM then went on to add how the wastewater from four main drains falling into Yamuna — Badshahpur, Ghazipur, Najafgarh, and Supplementary — is also being treated in-situ.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo also stated that the Delhi Government will close down all the industries which are discharging industrial waste into the Yamuna. Wastewater in "jhuggi jhopri" clusters flows into the Yamuna through storm water drains. These will now be linked to the sewer network as well. Last week, Water Minister and Delhi Jal Board (DJB) Chairman Satyendar said all households in areas having a sewer system will be connected to the network by June 2022 to prevent the discharge of wastewater into nearby drains and the Yamuna river.

Furthermore, the Government will be providing household connections in parts that have a sewer network. Previously, all consumers had to get their connection themselves. The national capital has also started rehabilitation and de-silting of the sewer network.

Delhi Contributes To 80% Of Pollution Load In Yamuna River

A report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) pointed out that while the Yamuna's 22 km stretch in Delhi is barely 2 per cent of the length of the total river basin, it contributes over 80 per cent of the total pollution load in the entire river. It added that though the national capital has 17 Sewage Treatment Plants, which together add up to 40 per cent of the total installed sewage treatment capacity in India, these facilities remain grossly underutilised.

Even though Delhi has already spent over ₹ 1,500 crore for cleaning the river, the pollution load has only increased, it said. The report added that an analysis of the Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) of the river indicates that nothing has changed in terms of pollution load. The load has gone up from about 129 tonnes per day in 1982-83 to over 261 tonnes per day in 2019, it said.

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