Foreign, Indian devotees join campaign to clean Yamuna River

Vrindavan, Mar 23 (ANI): Hundreds of devotees, including foreigners, converged on the banks of Yamuna River here to do their bit to save the river from pollution.

Organised by an The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON) Temple here, the programme saw devotees singing devotional songs of their lord as they took out a procession of the Radha and Krishna on a decorated boat on the holy river.

" The campaign is going on for the past ten years. We have taken out a procession of Radha and Krishna and prayed to the lord. All the devotees have decided to come together and join in the campaign," said Mahant Anandswarup, a priest.

The foreign devotees who attended the programme called for a major initiative from all the devotees to save the river.

"We all should come together and protect Yamuna River otherwise it will disappear for sure," Radha, a foreigner from Switzerland who is staying in India for the past 30 years.

The River Yamuna is today in a pathetic state, and its water is unfit for even bathing, leave alone consumption.

According to a Central Pollution Control Board report, around 70 per cent of the pollution in the Yamuna is human excrement.

A major pollutant of Yamuna is Delhi, which contributes 3,296 MLD (million litres per day) of sewage falling into the river. Only half of the sewage produced in Delhi is treated effectively.

Sewage discharge from Delhi and major towns like Mathura, Vrindavan and Agra has irreversibly altered its ecology. The river has been termed as incapable of supporting any aquatic life whatsoever.

Environmentalists have also been highlighting the damage caused to human health by allowing the discharged sewage to re-enter the human food chain via the agricultural produce watered by it in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

The Yamuna Action Plan started in 1993 with the aim of conserving the river has met with no success, despite billions being spent on it. (ANI)