Yearly, the pictures of devoted ladies moving into the poisonous froth-laden waters of the Yamuna for Chhat Puja in Delhi exude ache for each individuals and the river which has been bearing the brunt of speedy urbanization and industrialization within the metropolis.
Of the various initiatives to wash the river, the latest one was helmed by lieutenant-governor of Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena, which he has documented in Racing to Restore: the Yamuna Memoir. As many as 3792 unauthorized constructions have been eliminated and 273.5 acre was repossessed within the floodplain by way of the programme Saxena led, each because the LG and chairman of the excessive stage committee (HLC) constituted by NGT. Nevertheless, he needed to depart the work “unfinished” after the Supreme Courtroom stayed his HLC chairmanship in July 2023.
Saxena sketches his journey from being an admirer of the river to its custodian. He grew up on the banks of the Paishwani, a tributary of the Yamuna in Banda, the house city of Goswami Tulsidas, the writer of the Ramcharitmanas.
“I used to swim and see by way of the water, the rippling sediments on the river flooring,” he remembers.
His private {and professional} sojourns in Mathura, Prayagraj, Farrukhabad, Gotan, Bhal and Ahmedabad saved him round rivers, particularly the Yamuna, working for them, and studying from them. At some situations, he quietly made his contribution in direction of safety of rivers, on different events, he stood in opposition to stalwarts. He eloquently discusses his “David vs Goliath” battle with Narmada Bachoa Andolan supremo Medha Patkar in exposing the “farce being run” within the identify of river safety.
“When waters of Narmada got here gushing into Gujarat, I had a hand in making them circulate,” he writes.
In 2015, he was appointed the chairman of Khadi and Village Industries Fee (KVIC). His new workplace on Yamuna’s financial institution introduced him nearer to the river. He walked alongside the river, reflecting on its historical past, not understanding that the accountability to do one thing for its polluted waters – first because the LG, Delhi after which as NGT-constituted HLC chairman – would quickly beckon him.
“I took it extra as a possibility than an appointment,” he says. Unsurprisingly, among the many first duties he launched into as LG, Delhi was to wash the Yamuna. And one of many first actions he undertook was to revive river Sahibi, as soon as a tributary of the Yamuna, which had was a 57 km lengthy “stinking, gas-emitting, marsh of putrid wastewater” – Najafgarh drain.
“I personally visited all the stretch of the drain that carry hundreds of thousands of cusecs of filth, silt, sewerage and enters Yamuna largely unhindered,” he writes. “I took a ship journey into the stinking Najafgarh drain, in all probability the primary by an LG”.
Like anybody, he was additionally taken without warning by the startling statistics. The outfall of sewage, principally untreated, was about 744 Million Gallons per Day (MGD) in opposition to 930 MGD. This meant that 80 per cent of water provide within the metropolis flip into sewage and far of it’s drained immediately into the river. Expressing his disbelief, he writes:
“I used to be appalled that about 85 % of the air pollution within the metropolis is because of home sources.”
As destiny would have it, his authority to work on the Yamuna strengthened when Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal (NGT) “requested” him to chair the HLC for Rejuvenation and Restoration of Yamuna. As he took the “authority and alternative to take possession of the duty” with each arms, seen variations, he claims, started to emerge because of improvement of 40 new de-centralized sewage therapy vegetation, rehabilitation of Kondli, Rithala STPs, partial gravitational de-silting, tapping of drains, upgradation of 13 CETPs and different actions to rid the Yamuna of air pollution.
“Although not passable, 12 months on 12 months knowledge on the subject of a number of parameters began displaying enchancment in child steps,” he writes. Challenge Baansera, Delhi’s first bamboo theme park and Challenge Vatiika, an initiative to recreate wetlands by way of efficient plantation, are instances in level evincing the affect his work introduced and appreciated by G-20 envoys throughout a go to to ASITA on the Yamuna banks in March 2023. His function was additionally instrumental in adoption of O-zone within the Grasp Plan 2041 as an “space of no building” and a regulated O(R) zone with “solely important utilities”.
Nevertheless, to LG’s dismay, Supreme Courtroom stayed the NGT instructions appointing him because the HLC’s head in response to a petition filed by the Delhi authorities in Could 2023 arguing that the river rejuvenation work needs to be invested with them. “The order stalled the initiatives that have been being taken on a battle footing for a few 12 months,” he woefully writes. “The attraction was to disempower an individual and to not strengthen the programme.”
Taking an obvious jibe on the ruling Aam Admi Occasion in Delhi, he says: “Yamuna is but once more getting inundated with the confusion of possession. The framework is prepared, the troopers have been prepared however it’s simply that in proving a political level, the plot is getting misplaced.”
For political causes or not, a number of programmes and hundreds of thousands of rupees haven’t been capable of rid Yamuna of air pollution, but.