Like air, Delhi govt to assess water quality in real time at Yamuna, major drains

The project is likely to be completed towards the end of the year, environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said.

The Delhi government will for the first time install 32 water quality monitoring stations at the Yamuna and city’s drains for obtaining real-time data for quick intervention on ground, officials aware of the matter said on Thursday.

On Yamuna river, six key locations have been selected — Palla, ISBT bridge, ITO bridge, Nizamuddin Bridge, Okhla barrage and Asgarpur, where the river exits Delhi. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), which will oversee the process, will award a tender worth ₹22 crore for installing 18 stations in major drains, and the remaining at various points of the Yamuna.

The project is likely to be completed towards the end of the year, environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said.

The minister said the stations will be made operational within three months of awarding the work contract. “The tender for this was floated earlier and is now in the final stages. Bids have been received and it will soon be awarded,” he said.

Experts appreciated the move but said that once these stations are operational only then will their use be identified.

A DPCC official said that as per the initial plan, 18 stations will be installed at major polluting drains that flow into Yamuna, including Najafgarh drain, Shahdara drain, Barapullah drain, Khyber pass drain and Metcalf House drain, among others.

On the river itself, six key locations have been selected — Palla, ISBT bridge, ITO bridge, Nizamuddin Bridge, Okhla barrage and Asgarpur, where the river exits Delhi.

DPCC has also selected eight locations in NCR, where drains from neighbouring Haryana and Uttar Pradesh enter the Delhi stretch of the river. This includes stations at the DD6 at Singhu border, drains in Bahadurgarh, UP drains meeting Shahdara, and the Hindon cut.

The pollution agency said that the stations will provide real-time data, eliminating the need for manual collection of samples. At present, water samples are collected once a month from eight locations in the Yamuna, with a similar exercise carried out in Delhi’s drains. These samples are then tested in a lab. A DPCC official said the stations will help assess data on a real-time basis, identifying the parts of the river that witness pollution spikes.

The stations will monitor parameters such Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), ammonia, total nitrogen, phosphates, and total suspended solids (TSS), among others.

In 2018, the National Green Tribunal (NGT)-appointed Yamuna Monitoring Committee (YMC) said that only 2% stretch of the river in Delhi, or 22km, accounted for 76% of the river’s total pollution load.

Among the drains, the major contribution of wastewater is from Najafgarh drain (around 70%), followed by Shahdara drain (around 16%) .

HT on Tuesday reported how water quality in the Yamuna has worsened in the last two years, with BOD levels spiking to over 42 times the permissible standard. This was based on a recent DPCC report, ‘Progress in Rejuvenation of the River Yamuna’, which showed BOD levels spiking to 127mg/l in January 2025. This was 42 times the prescribed standard of 3mg/l for BOD.

BOD is a key indicator of water quality, as it measures the amount of oxygen required by microorganisms in a waterbody to break down organic matter. A high BOD indicates a high level of organic pollutants, which can deplete dissolved oxygen in the water, harming aquatic life.

Bhim Singh Rawat, a Yamuna activist, and member of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) said that the data should be made public once the project takes off.

“The idea is good. A website or a section on DPCC website needs to be maintained where such data is updated on a real-time basis,” he said.