India Launches 5-city River Cleanse Project

[Guest guest]

India Launches five-city Programme to Cleanse Rivers of Filth

Rahul Kumar

OneWorld South Asia

23 June 2005

 

NEW DELHI, Jun 23 (OneWorld) - The Ministry of Environment and

Forests has initiated a unique project to educate pilgrims in five

Indian cities about the importance of protecting and preserving

rivers. The pilgrims have been targeted because part of the pollution

in Indian rivers is caused by religious offerings and immersion of

idols.

 

The program is being conducted by a non-governmental organization

(NGO), Centre for Environment Education (CEE), which is an autonomous

body of the Indian government. CEE has lunched the project under the

eco-cities project which includes the holy towns of Mathura,

Vrindavan, Tirupati, Ujjain and Rishikesh, most of which are located

in north and central India.

 

Sharad Gaur from CEE said: "Under the project, we have launched

participatory waste management programs. We plan to educate people,

particularly pilgrims, about not polluting the rivers during

festivals by throwing polythene bags and garlands. We also are

impressing upon the people to desist from immersing idols in the

rivers."

 

In fact throwing of polythene bags in the rivers, canals and streams

has contributed in major pollution loads. Gaur said: "Polybags have

choked drains in Delhi and are clogging the sewage treatment plants

(STP) in other cities. These non biodegradable materials bring down

the efficiency of STPs in a big way."

 

Delhi-based experts and officials from the Indian government took

stock of plans that were implemented recently to rejuvenate river

Yamuna in New Delhi at the screening of a film - 'Jijivisha' - on the

river on Wednesday. The screening was followed by a discussion - 'And

Darker yet Flows the Yamuna'.

 

The governments of India and Delhi have together spent over Rs 800

crore (approximately $175 million), under the Yamuna Action Plan

Phase I (YAP-I), to clean it but the difference is not even

perceptible. A number of NGOs have criticized the government for

being opaque, inefficient and of adopting technologies that are

engineering or construction-related.

 

In the 22 kms of its passage through Delhi, of its total length of

1,200 kms, the river acquires over 80 per cent of the total pollution

load. It receives 3,500 million litres of untreated sewage everyday –

both industrial as well as domestic - from over 19 drains in Delhi.

 

Part of the reason why revival plans for the Yamuna have not been

successful is because of people's apathy for the river. Program

Coordinator of a voluntary organization – We for Yamuna – Siddhanth

Aney says: "The only people who know about the river are the ones who

reside on its banks. We found that as we move away from the river,

people are hardly aware of its existence or are least concerned. But

whoever gets water from the river is stakeholder and ought to be

worried about its fate."

 

The fact is that the fast growing city of Delhi, with a population of

14 million, quenches its thirst from the river. It gets nearly 70 per

cent of the drinking water from the river and the rest from canals

and groundwater.

 

The chairman of the Paani Morcha, an organization fighting to save

the river, commander Sureshwar Sinha, who has submitted a number of

proposals to the government to clean up the river, said: "It is high

time that the government junked its expensive mechanical and

construction-based projects and instead looked at natural ways of

reviving the river. By using natural treatment ponds instead of

sewage treatment plants (STPs) we can treat domestic sewage better

than mechanical plants. This will ensure that all the wastewater that

flows into the river will be clean."

 

Sinha laments that all the money that the governments have spent on

cleaning up the river have been loans and not grants given by foreign

governments. He says: "What Delhiites are not aware of is that the

huge money given by the Japanese government was a loan, which has to

be returned. The government will recover this money from the people

by levying taxes and this money has not been spent properly."

 

Facing stiff criticism, the National River Conservation Directorate

(NRCD) of the Indian government has now tried to reach out to people

and groups to help it draft a new strategy for river conservation.

Ajay Raghav, who is a director at the NRCD, said: "We are inviting

people to participate in a new strategy – Clean Yamuna Manch – to

provide us solutions. We are also reviewing some of the strategies

which we had followed previously." He also blamed the numerous

agencies for not utilizing the money in a proper manner.

 

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which is the civic agency

for maintaining the drains in Delhi, also has come in for scathing

criticism for its work on cleaning up the river. It also is thinking

of shifting focus from a centralized sewage system to a decentralized

sewage system. Raghav said: "The MCD plans to start five sites where

the sewage will be treated in a decentralized manner, which is likely

to decrease the pollution load on the river."

 

Some of these measures might be coming too late for the river that

four decades back had seen ships sail in it and on which just a

decade back a naval club used to hold regatta competitions. Experts

are optimistic that if the European cities could bring back their

dying rivers to life, the Yamuna also can be restored to its former

glory provided the government now starts thinking in terms of biology

and river conservation and goes slow on its engineering solutions.