Amit Shah to launch ₹8941 crore projects on Oct 22, says Parvesh Verma

Verma said 76,755 kg of dry waste, plastic bags, and religious offerings, along with 9,850 kg of green waste and water hyacinth, were cleared from the banks on Oct 18

Over 35,000 volunteers participated in the one-day Yamuna floodplain cleanliness campaign on October 18, which saw the removal of 86,600 kg of waste from 70 riverfront ghats across the city, Delhi water minister Parvesh Verma said on Monday

Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta participates in a cleanliness drive along the Yamuna river at Chhath Ghat near ITO in New Delhi, India, on Sunday (Hindustan Times/Arvind Yadav)

Addressing a Press conference a day after the mega drive, Verma said the volunteers included 20,000 workers from various NGOs, 10,500 Bharatiya Janata Party members, and students from 27 Delhi University colleges.

During the drive, 76,755 kg of dry waste, plastic bags, and religious offerings, along with 9,850 kg of green waste and water hyacinth, were cleared from the banks, he said.

The minister said equipment deployed along the banks included more than 250 Public Works Department (PWD) maintenance vans, hundreds of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) vehicles, and specialised weed harvesters.

Mega projects on October 22

Verma said Union home minister Amit Shah will lay foundation stones and launch key river-cleaning projects worth ₹8,941 crore near the Urban Extension Road-2 (UER-2) in west Delhi on October 22.

“We assure that Yamuna would be considerably clean in 2 to 2.5 years,” he added. He added that 29 decentralised sewage treatment plants (DSTPs), stuck for years, would also take off. “We have removed the hurdles about the land and expedited projects over the last 18 months,” he added.

Shah will arrive on the Urban Extension Road-2 (UER-2), near the border of the Matiala and Najafgarh assembly constituencies, to launch and lay the foundation stones for various projects.

These include new sewage treatment plants (STPs) by the Delhi Jal Board, household sewer connections for lakhs of homes in Delhi, and the expansion of the sewer-line network, he said.

‘Celebrate birthdays at Yamuna’

The minister said cleanup drives aim to build a bond between the river and its people, and urged people to celebrate their birthdays on the riverbanks. “We will create specialised huts where such events can take place. People can come and celebrate their birthday while spending some time with family volunteering for clean-up of the Yamuna ghats,” he added.

Verma said he will lead by example and celebrate his birthday on Yamuna ghats on November 7.

The Yamuna originates from the Yamunotri glacier in the Himalayas (Uttarakhand) and ends at its confluence with the Ganga at Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj. The 22-km stretch of the Yamuna from Wazirabad to Okhla in Delhi is only 2% of the river’s length but contributes the most to its overall pollution load. The Delhi stretch has 22 major drains that flow into the river.

Currently, DJB cannot treat all the sewage the city generates, which still enters the river.

Verma said the city will bridge the 250 MGD treatment-capacity gap over the next 2.5 years.

“We can not say that Yamuna will become clean in six months, one year or 1.5 years. It will start getting relatively better in 1.5 years, and people will see drastic change in 2.5 years when all these treatment plants and projects are completed,” he added.