Delhi Jal Board urges Haryana, UP to curb Yamuna pollution

A day after the country’s apex pollution watchdog raised concerns over frothing in the Yamuna river, Delhi Jal Board (DJB) vice-chairperson Raghav Chadha on Monday

A day after the country’s apex pollution watchdog raised concerns over frothing in the Yamuna river, Delhi Jal Board (DJB) vice-chairperson Raghav Chadha on Monday urged neighbouring Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Haryana to take steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged into the drains, curbing pollution in the river.

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“While it appears that the governments of UP and Haryana are not bothered about releasing untreated wastewater into Yamuna, I’d like to put on record that the DJB has been constantly working to upgrade and augment the capacity of its sewage treatment plants (STPs) so that untreated effluents are not released into the Yamuna,” said Chadha in a statement.

He added that the Okhla Barrage is under the jurisdiction of the UP irrigation department, and because of its “lackadaisical attitude, water hyacinths grow in abundance. When these hyacinths decompose, they release surfactants like phosphates. When this water falls into Kalindi Kunj from a height, it produces foam, which gradually accumulates and floats on the surface of the water,” said Chadha.

Apart from this, he said, the paper and sugar industries operating in Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Saharanpur in UP also release untreated wastewater containing surfactants, which is then released into Yamuna through the Hindon Canal at Okhla Barrage. This causes foam to form and accumulate in the Yamuna.

He further said that UP’s untreated waste water reaches Delhi through the Shahdara drain while that of Haryana’s is discharged into the Najafgarh drain. “Both the drains meet the Yamuna via the Okhla Barrage thereby polluting it. We have been working on treating sewage through state-of-the-art sewage treatment plants (STPs) as well as by upgrading the existing plants. However, it’s not Delhi’s problem alone, and we will need cooperation from UP and Haryana to keep the Yamuna clean.”

Both UP and Haryana together release around 150 MGD (million gallons per day) of untreated wastewater into Yamuna, according to government data.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), on Sunday, had raised concerns on the pollution in the river and issued directions to the DJB to submit a timebound action plan to ensure compliance of norms by STPs and that no untreated sewage is discharged into these drains. Similar directions were also issued to the state pollution control boards of Haryana and UP.