The Ganga & Yamuna Action Plans were conceived in 1975 and since then thousands of crores of rupees have been spent without tangible commensurate results. Delegations have been abroad to study how rivers have been brought to life. The latest was of River Thames in London. Indian Express in its issue of November 11, 2005 said "Three months after filing an affidavit in apex court that it’s going to take a leaf out of London’s book, our Government is yet to start drafting a clean-up plan for Yamuna". No one seems responsible to keep the citizens of Delhi informed. The leaders in Britain realized the need to clean up the Thames when the stink became unbearable for the Parliamentarians and they were not able to conduct their day-to-day business. Unless we stay focused on the local situation it is futile to try and fit a square peg in a round hole. The question is – will the Yamuna continue to "gently weep" or can we, together, take some radical, time-bound measures to ensure its survival? Can we afford to pump in another Rs. 30,000 crores and not be sure of rejuvenating the river? Delhi’s Master Plan-2021 in its action plan for cleaning the river, correctly emphasizes the ensuring of minimum flow, prevention of sewage from entering the river, establishing Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) and Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs), rehabilitation of trunk sewers, removal of slums clusters on its banks and checking the flow of drains into the river.

These steps are not new. The question still remains as to how it is to be implemented. Can we continue to leave these responsibilities to government agencies? Do we have to continue drinking water which even after treatment contains high levels of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloro ethane) and HCH (hexachloro hexane) as observed by scientists of JNU and the Goa Institute? "If we do not learn to properly manage our resources we are in for trouble" says environmental economist Professor Paul Appasamy of the Madras School of Economics.

Let us examine the two basic fundamentals - adequate flow in the river and preventing its pollution by untreated drains and effluents in its 22 km stretch from Wazirabad to Okhla.

It is accepted that the 13 million population of Delhi needs water for its domestic needs. This population is increasing at the rate of 5 lakhs annually. The river is comparatively clean at Jagatpur approximately 3 kms north of Wazirabad Barrage. At Wazirabad most of the water is taken up by the Delhi Jal Board and just downstream of the barrage, 18 drains offload their waste/effluents till Okhla. So what minimum flow are we talking about? The Master Plan hopes to force the upstream riparian states to release adequate water. Don’t these states have their own irrigation and domestic needs? Have we not learnt our lessons from the ongoing disputes between states to get their perceived fair share of river water? When we fight for our share with other states, it is always essential to assess our own potential in detail. The most viable answer to provide a minimum flow is to take help of nature, the life-giving monsoons. Why does the government not insist on rain-water harvesting, especially in residential colonies with clusters of flats? If we citizens turn a blind eye on our responsibilities, a legislative order needs to be enforced without an eye on vote-bank factors. What is the bottleneck? Residents Welfare Associations are registered societies with no statutory powers and cannot enforce recovery of subscriptions from residents. To obviate this situation Statutory Neighbourhood Committees under the Municipal Act should be instituted. It is not a complicated rocket science to calculate the amount of rain water which can be harvested to recharge the aquifers with an average annual rainfall of 600 to 800 mm in the national capital region. The resulting reduced dependence of river water would ensure the minimum flow.

Secondly, to prevent drains/effluents entering the river, adequate and functional STPs and CETPs should be established. Out of the 30 STPs/CETPs at 17 locations, 20 are running under capacity and 3 are non-functional. Our experts have a ready answer to this inadequacy – "we do not have enough water and power supply is erratic". As regards the latter surely a solution can be found. One would be to set up captive power plants at every STP/CETP location which can automatically switch on when the main supply goes off. This will ensure optimal treatment of waste water/effluents. Even this treated water should not be allowed to enter the river but be utilized for irrigation of community parks and green spaces in Delhi.

Once the two fundamentals of adequate flow and prevention of untreated sewage/effluents are taken care of, other measures of desilting the river bed, reducing its width, removing water hyacinth to prevent the river from choking, introducing oloids (mechanical device like a floating fan which aerates the water) to oxygenate the drains, rehabilitation of dwellings from the river banks and landscaping the area could be resorted to. Let us not fool ourselves by merely carrying out token service in organizing small-scale clean-up drives, removing a few baskets full of water hyacinth, doing a small nukkad-natak with the hope of getting some tangible results. The problem has to be seen in its entirety and an action plan prepared, budget allocated, deadlines set, and progress monitored against verifiable indicators.