Debris hunters clean up Yamuna after immersions

NEW DELHI: They share a symbiotic relationship with the Yamuna. The debris thrown in the river, especially after the festivals in which idols are immersed, provide

NEW DELHI: They share a symbiotic relationship with the Yamuna. The debris thrown in the river, especially after the festivals in which idols are immersed, provide material to the scavengers living in nearby slums. The river, in the process, gets rid of some of its pollutants.

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A day after Durga Puja idol immersion, scores of scavengers reached the Yamuna ghats on Wednesday to sift through the idols for firewood, glass, pieces of iron and fabric.

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee vowed to quantify the impact of idol immersions on the river by conducting pre- and post-immersion water quality tests this year. But, officials were not seen at the sites.

A Anbarasu, the divisional commissioner and revenue secretary of Delhi, said he was still waiting for the results .“As today Wednesday) is a holiday, I expect I will have the results of the tests conducted by the DPCC by noon on Thursday,” he said.

For Lala Chaudhury and his wife, scouring for useable debris is a yearly ritual. They said they will be reinforcing their huts with the bamboo they had collected this year. “Every year, after the visarjan (immersions), we collect wood from the rivers. This year, it will help us strengthen our houses,” he said at the Kashmere Gate ghat.

“This is also our food in a way. We use some of the timber we find as firewood.”

Scavengers like Choudhury help collect and remove some debris from the river. They are usually on the lookout for wood or bamboo shoots or scrap like metals and glass.

Anwari, a first-time visitor to the banks, said she had come from across the river to find wood suitable to build huts. “We can only make makeshift huts with these bits of wood and bamboo,” she said. “It is still better than nothing, right? In the process, if we end up cleaning some dirt in the river, isn’t that good ?”

Some others look for scrap that they could possibly sell for a profit. “We usually find bits of iron, glass, earthen pots, and bits of fabric, that we can sell to the scrap dealer for some money,” said Sadanand, another scavenger at the Kashmere Gate ghat.

“We help remove a lot of the garbage that floats around here. We collect the materials we don’t find useful and heap it together, making it easier for the authorities to clean up,” said Sadanand.