NGT panel on Yamuna identifies areas to improve water quality

To prevent waste from being dumped into the river, it has decided to cover 10 bridges running along Yamuna with wire and mesh

The National Green Tribunal-appointed high level committee (HLC) to rejuvenate the Yamuna, on Sunday, said it has identified new thrust areas to improve the river’s water quality, in addition to the existing eight action plan pointers it was working on.

An Indian Navy boat moves from Signature Bridge to ITO barrage. The bridges covered under the plan include the Wazirabad bridge, the ISBT bridge near Kashmere Gate, the Old Iron Railway Bridge (Loha Pul), Geeta Colony bridge, Signature Bridge, ITO bridge, railway bridge downstream of ITO, Nizamuddin road bridge, DND flyway, and the Okhla barrage road bridge. (IANI)

The decisions were taken in the fifth HLC meeting held on June 9. The new thrust areas include delinking of sewerage lines and stormwater drains — a problem that has occurred over time due to faulty inter-connections, prevention of dumping of waste from 10 major bridges across the Yamuna, and desilting of sewer lines below 1,000 millimetre (mm) in diameter, which run up to a length of around 443km across the city, officials aware of the matter said.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the HLC said these new action points were decided on the basis of on-ground experience gathered so far. These were also discussed in the previous meeting held in April.

“The committee has instructed that drain owning agencies (DOAs) to submit timelines for disconnection of faulty inter-connections during the next meeting of the HLC,” it added.

To prevent waste from being dumped into the river, it has also decided to cover 10 bridges running along the Yamuna with wire and mesh, with further directions issued to repair the existing broken wires or mesh on these bridges. The bridges covered under the plan include the Wazirabad bridge, the ISBT bridge near Kashmere Gate, the Old Iron Railway Bridge (Loha Pul), Geeta Colony bridge, Signature Bridge, ITO bridge, railway bridge downstream of ITO, Nizamuddin road bridge, DND flyway, and the Okhla barrage road bridge.

“Directions have been issued to the road-owning agencies for corrective action,” an official, part of the committee, said.

The existing eight action plans HLC was already working on included 100% treatment of sewage, trapping of all drains, construction of sewerage networks in unauthorised colonies and JJ clusters, industrial effluent management through CETPs, septage management, restoration and rejuvenation of Yamuna floodplains, utilisation of treated wastewater, and environmental management plan of Najafgarh jheel.

HLC was formed through an NGT order dated January 9, 2023, and is headed by lieutenant governor VK Saxena as its chairperson.

Bhim Singh Rawat, a Yamuna activist and member of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) said these steps were welcome, but the HLC needs to look at additional problems like dumping of construction and demolition waste along the floodplains and drains, maintaining sufficient ecological flow of the river and mapping the floodplain area that is impacted by flooding.

“Many steps have also been taken to prevent dumping of religious leftovers in the river, but have not yielded the intended results. Without learning from those failures it could again be a futile exercise,” he said, asking the HLC to look at forming a dedicated team to map the spread of the flood water along the floodplains and identify how the e-flow can be improved during the lean season.