It took 70 years for Yamuna to get this dirty, can't be cleaned in 2 days: CM Kejriwal

New Delhi, Nov 18: The Delhi government is coming up with a six-point plan to clean the Yamuna river to bathing standards by February 2025, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Thursday.

The government is constructing new sewage treatment plants (STPs) as well as increasing the capacity of the existing ones. "This will increase our sewage treatment capacity from around 600 million gallons of wastewater a day to 750-800 MGD," the CM said.

He said the wastewater from four major drains falling in the Yamuna -- Najafgarh, Badshahpur, Supplementary and Ghazipur -- is being treated in-situ and the industries discharging industrial waste into the Yamuna will be shut.

He claimed that the wastewater in "jhuggi jhopri" clusters flows through stormwater drains into the Yamuna and clusters will be connected to the sewer network. The government will provide household connections in areas that have a sewer network. Earlier, the consumers had to get the connections themselves.

The city government has also started de-silting and rehabilitation of the sewer network."Our engineers and officers are hopeful that we will be able to clean the Yamuna by February 2025 with the implementation of the six-point action plan. "Specific targets have been set for each action point and I will personally monitor the progress," Kejriwal said.

Delhi generates around 720 million gallons of wastewater a day. The 35 STPs at 20 locations across the city can treat up to 597 MGD of sewage and have been utilising around 90 per cent of their capacity.
The 22-kilometre stretch of the Yamuna between Wazirabad and Okhla accounts for around 80 per cent of the pollution load in it.

Recently, the pictures and videos of devotees performing prayers in the Yamuna on the occasion of Chhath Puja with foam floating on the surface of the river indicated the high pollution level. The primary reason for the formation of foam in the Yamuna is a high phosphate content in the detergents used in dyeing industries, dhobi ghats and households in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, experts said.

In addition to it, the poor quality of effluent discharged from common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) and STPs is another reason. Wastewater from authorised colonies and settlements containing a high phosphate content reaches the river through untapped drains. When the water falls from a height at a barrage, the turbulence agitates the phosphoric compounds in the river, which leads to the formation of froth. Frothing in certain stretches of the river, such as near ITO and the Okhla Barrage, has become an annual phenomenon now in winters when the temperatures are low and the flow in the river is less.

"It took 70 years for river Yamuna to become this dirty, it can't be cleaned within 2 days. I had promised people in these Delhi polls that it would be cleaned by the next polls. We've started work on war-footing. We have 6 action points over it, I'm personally monitoring it," said the CM. With inputs from agencies.