NEW DELHI, April 12, 2024—Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Shri Arvinder Singh Lovely said that the Modi Government at the Centre, which boasts of making India “Viksit Bharat” by 2047, has failed to clean up the lifeline of Delhi, the Yamuna river, which has been reduced to a virtual drain due to the inaction by the Modi Government at the Centre, and the seven BJP MPs from the Capital, who took no interest in improving the conditions of Delhi.
Shri Lovely said that the toxic air and water pollution have been posing severe health hazards to the people of Delhi, despite Delhi being the centre of power of the BJP Government, and all the top officials, who manage the affairs of environmental issues. He said that with summer temperatures rising, the flow of water in the Yamuna has been reduced to a thin rivulet, filled with the effluents of the drains falling into the river, as the Central Government had not asked the BJP-ruled Haryana Government to release more fresh water into the Yamuna to raise the water level. He said that most areas in the Capital have been either facing severe water shortage, or getting dirty water, as no one seems to bother about the plight of Delhiites starved of clean drinking water.
Shri Lovely recalled that as far back as on August 23, 2017, the National Green Tribunal had imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the Environment Ministry for not submitting a status report on rejuvenation and restoration of the Yamuna river, yet the Yamuna water continues to stagnate, as polluted as ever. Shri Arvinder Singh Lovely said that though only around 22-km of the 1,400-km river flows between Wazirabad and Okhla in Delhi, the National Capital accounts for 76 per of the pollution load on the river, He said that numerous projects had been launched to clean the river in the past ten years but they have so far yielded little result, as the Central Government and the Delhi BJP MPs had not shown the necessary drive or initiative to clean the Yamuna water other than empty boasts.
Shri Lovely said that the Centre’s cleaning of Yamuna has become an endless project, like that of the Namami Gange scheme, as despite spending thousands of crores, the Namami Gange project is still a work in progress, with the target of cleaning the river getting extended every few years.
