Stop the lies about cleaning the Yamuna

The week after Diwali comes the festival of Chhath. Initially observed by people from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, it is now celebrated with equal devotion in several other parts of India. Delhi, however, stands out in an unsettling way. The pollution in the Yamuna makes the river so foam-ridden and foul that people do not even want to glance at it. They have taken to celebrating the festival in the swimming pools of their housing societies instead.

This has become routine, but this time, the Yamuna looks particularly fierce. The monsoon clouds have barely drifted away, yet on 16 October, at 5.00 pm, the water flow at the Hathni Kund Barrage (upstream, in Haryana) was a mere 3,107 cusecs. This, despite the fact that no water is currently being channelled into the Yamuna Canal to Uttar Pradesh.

Although there was adequate rainfall in the catchment area of the river around Delhi, by October, the river had neither enough water nor had it been cleansed of its toxic load. At a time when the river should have been brimming after heavy rains, it was the level of ammonia that surged five times; the disgusting frothy foam floating in the river even now is due to excess ammonia. The problem is that there hasn’t been a single flood this year in the Yamuna, the water simply hasn’t flowed with any vigour, so the trash hasn’t been washed away and the chemicals remain stagnant.

Declarations to clean the Yamuna and restore its flow in Delhi have been made more times than anyone can count or recount. The Kejriwal government had set a deadline of 2025, and recently, Delhi lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena extended it to 2026. The Central government has already handed over Rs Rs 8,500 crore to the Delhi government for this mission, on top of the several thousand crores already spent.

Sewage treatment plants (STPs) have been installed at various points, but the situation remains the same. According to a report by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), in July, the Yamuna’s oxygen levels dropped to zero — a situation never seen before.

Delhi’s thirst cannot be quenched by the Yamuna alone, so water from the Ganga, besides (dangerously depleting) groundwater, must also be used. Delhi consumes an estimated 1,900 cusecs of water a day, of which 60 per cent, or about 1,100 cusecs, ends up as sewage. If this wastewater is treated and returned to the Yamuna, it will not only make the river cleaner but also mitigate Delhi’s drinking water crisis. But the question that is always ignored is: where will the water for the river come from?

The truth is that the water flowing from the Yamunotri glacier vanishes even before it has descended from the mountains. Most of the water that reaches Delhi comes from small rivers in Haryana and the waste discharged by factories. So, what can you expect from the Yamuna in Delhi?

The river floods only when excess water from Haryana is released into Delhi. That did not happen this year, which is why there has been no flood. Floods, which are seen as a disaster by political leaders, government officials and sundry other people of influence who promote illegal construction along the river-bank, are actually the most natural way to improve the quality of the river.

Flood water carries beneficial salts from the mountains and clears out debris from the riverbed. This increases oxygen levels in the water, creating a favourable environment for fish and other aquatic species.

But why didn’t the Yamuna flood Delhi this time? Like all rivers, the life of the Yamuna lies in its floodplains — the areas a river naturally spreads to when there is enough water in it. But in Delhi, we have left no room for the river to spread. Even in the mountains, illegal sand mining and diversion of the river’s flow for various purposes have obstructed its natural course. To make matters worse, there are plenty of government-sanctioned efforts to dam the river in its upper reaches.

The Lakhwar Vyasi project, involving a 204 m dam on the Yamuna in the Kalsi block of Dehradun, began in 1972. Though it was halted for a time, work resumed in 2013, and now the river is trapped before it even descends from the mountains. It is obvious that if the river does not flow from the mountains, it is nothing more than a seasonal, rainfed stream from Hathni Kund to Wazirabad. How relevant can a project conceived 52 years ago be when the environmental degradation of the Himalayas has reached such a critical point and when climate change is upon us?

Not only is the water flow reduced by these dams and tunnels diverting the river, the debris from construction also flows into the river, making it shallow. In December 2021, when a turbine was commissioned on an experimental basis at the Vyasi Hydropower Project (in Dehradun, Uttarakhand), the Yamuna’s flow nearly disappeared. This made it abundantly clear that the project had effectively cut off Delhi’s access to the river’s natural flow.

All the money spent on cleaning the Yamuna in Delhi is disconnected from the reality of the river itself. Between the barrages at Wazirabad and Okhla, 22 bridges have been built over the Yamuna, with four more under construction. These have damaged the river’s natural flow, depth and width. Illegal residential constructions have further encroached on the floodplains, reducing the river’s carrying capacity.

Official records show that out of the 9,700 hectares of floodplain land between Wazirabad and Okhla, permanent structures now cover 3,638 hectares, which the Delhi Development Authority has itself regularised. This includes 100 hectares for the Akshardham temple, 63.5 hectares for the Games Village, 40 hectares for the Yamuna Bank metro train depot and 70 hectares for the Shastri Park metro depot.

Sundry other encroachments on the floodplains — some legal, some not — like IT parks, the Delhi Secretariat, Majnu Ka Tila and Abu Fazal Enclave continue, seemingly undeterred by the inevitable consequences for the river.

According to research by the Centre for Science and Environment, the Yamuna’s floodplain once had over 600 wetlands and water bodies, but ‘over 60 per cent of them are now dry. These wetlands used to store rainwater year-round, but now they increase the risk of flooding in the city.’ The report also states that ‘many waterbodies in the floodplain have been cut off from the river due to embankments’.

The bottomline is this: unless the flow from the Yamunotri glacier reaches Haryana uninterrupted, and unless Delhi experiences at least 25 days of flood-like conditions during the monsoon, no technology can revive the Yamuna in Delhi. STPs and riverfront developments can only work if there is water in the river. To save the Yamuna, the river must be allowed to flow freely.