By Anuj Dewan
New Delhi: The Yamuna River is now considered the most polluted river of the country with a stew of pollutants such as residential waste, industrial chemicals, garbage, detergents and human excreta mixed in it.
The governments of three states Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi have spent around 12,000 Cr. in the river clean-up project, but the river still looks black and white. It looks black because of the pollutants and white because of the chemical foam floating on it.
“The river is almost dead and it is only a sewage canal,” says Suresh Rohila, Program Director, CSE.
Scientists say that sewage treatment plants along the river don’t work because there’s no electricity supply.
Scientific studies show that high levels of toxic chemicals such as mercury, nickel, lead, manganese, chromium, mercury, zinc are mixed in the river in different parts of the city. These toxins can prove fatal to the lives of the people dependent on the Yamuna.
The polluted river gets flooded in the monsoon and the water reaches agricultural fields. The farmers also use the water to grow fruits and vegetables year round. The output is sold in neighborhood markets without any objections from the government.
The visible toxins and pollution in the river does not stop a local resident Bishwajit Ghosh from bathing in it,. He says that it is auspicious to bathe in the river at the time of Kartik Poornima and he will bathe again.
Another resident Sunita who had come with a group of women to bathe says that she does not have any choice but to bathe in the river as it is Ganga Snan. “If something has to happen, it can happen at home also, ‘Ganga Maiya’ (Mother Ganga) will protect us,” said the women when asked whether it was safe to bathe in the river.
Except for a few ducks floating on the waters, most of the aquatic animals living in the river have become extinct because of depleting levels of oxygen in the river according to an environmentalist.
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