Yamuna starts from Uttarakhand and travels via Himachal, Haryana, Delhi and U.P and eventually merges into Ganga at Prayag, Allahabad. Several thousand crores rupees have been spent on purification of Yamuna but to no avail.

Objectives covered

• A. Root cause of Yamuna Pollution.

• B. Need for comprehensive study and assessment of the extent of pollution in different states.

• C. Pollution causes and suggested solutions.

• D. To Increase and ensure Fresh Water inflow into Yamuna.

• A. Root cause of Yamuna Pollution

  The following factors have been responsible for killing the Yamuna River:

  Apathy of the State Government(s) involved.
  Corrupt Water Pollution Board officials.
  Callous attitude of industry and mindless profiteering. 

  Lack of involvement of people.

  The rivers should be declared as a National Resource and this subject should be handled purely by the Centre only. The requisite calibre required for handling this subject is missing in the State Governments.

  B. Need for comprehensive study and assessment of the extent of pollution in different states

  Right from the beginning, the Centre has been pumping money into cleaning of Yamuna without assessing the needs of Yamuna.

  You cannot revive a tree without watering its roots. Until now, the efforts have been to wash the leaves of the tree without caring for the roots. The trouble of Yamuna starts much before it enters Delhi. The entire stretch from Paonta Saheb till Delhi is dotted with industries and small cities and towns situated on the banks of Yamuna which add generously to the miseries of the Yamuna.

  We also need to study the effect of reckless farming with highly dangerous chemicals which eventually get mixed up in Yamuna thru rain water.

  We need to undertake study of Yamuna and its tributaries right from Uttarakhand uptil Prayag. The small or big drains adding to these tributaries and Yamuna must be identified and we should undertake aerial imaging and also satellite imagery of these drains/nallahs to assess the pollutants being added through them. It is easier to deploy high technology and assess the pollutants.

  C. Industrial Pollution causes and suggested solutions

  There are lot of industries like distilleries, paper mills, and metal working units, chemical plants, electroplating units, PCB units, automotive ancillaries, textile dying units and leather tanneries which add to the woes of Yamuna.

  Causes:

  • 1. Greed

  • 2. Lack of Training

  • 3. Lack of Awareness

  • 4. Lack of Treatment Plants

    Suggested Solutions:

  • a) State should ensure implementation of pollution norms by large units.

  • b) ZERO DISCHARGE POLICY should be evolved and implemented.

    c) Working on PPP basis, specialised companies be entrusted the job of treating the outlet water in the common Industrial Areas and all the units should be connected with the ETP through pipeline on pay by use basis.

    d) Units scattered outside the Industrial Areas should be encouraged to send their pollutants through tanker basis to the common ETP.

  • e) Where none of the above is possible then, units should be closed down and rehabilitation of that unit should be done by providing seed capital and training.

  • f) It should be mandatory for the owner of the polluting company to undergo training for minimum 2 hours every month on pollution treatment.

  • g) The State should ensure implementation of training program on real time basis through software otherwise his pollution clearance should be suspended.

  • h) State should have a battery of trainers on various industries to train the owner’s and senior staff on that particular subject.

  • i) In all the concerned states and cities, exhaustive survey should be undertaken with the help of industries department, pollution department, industries association and prominent citizens of the city concerned. This will help in assessing the type of pollution treatment plants needed and the size of the plants can also be determined.

  • Further, we can shortlist certain plant suppliers and approve the standard plant rates for different capacities which the industries can buy out as readymade modules. The procedure for pollution approval needs to be simplified.

  • Also, independent surveyors and assessors should be deployed to keep checking the pollution levels of the city as a whole.

  • We should rope in Celebrities to this cause as ’YAMUNA MITRA’.

    • D. To Increase and ensure Fresh Water inflow into Yamuna

    At this moment, there is hardly any water left in the Yamuna after eastern Yamuna canal and western Yamuna canal are bifurcated from Yamuna at Tajewala Head works.

    There was a proposal sometime back to construct Kissau Dam and Lakhwar Dam upstream of Yamuna and Tons River which is a major tributary to Yamuna. While Kissau Dam proposes to produce 660 MW power and it is a gravity dam, the cost of the dam is around 7000 crores and Lakhwar Dam, the potential is 300 MW. 90% cost of the Kissau Dam is to be borne by Central Government and the project will be operational by 2023. This project would mean that throughout the year, Yamuna will have around 12000 cusecs of water. This will ensure that whatever residual pollution comes to Yamuna will be constantly washed away and whatever treatment is given to the pollutants will be effective in keeping the Yamuna in good health.

    GANGA ACTION PLAN(GAP)

                     
    

    Background

    The Ganga River, considered sacred by millions of people, suffers from severe pollution due to industrial effluents, untreated sewage, agricultural runoff, and religious offerings. The degradation of the Ganga's water quality has raised concerns about public health, aquatic ecosystems, and the sustainability of river-dependent livelihoods.

    a) Launched on January 14th, 1986 by Shri Rajeev Gandhi, India's then- Prime Minister.

    b) Primary goal: To reduce pollution and improve water quality by intercepting, diverting, and treating domestic sewage as well as current toxic and industrial  chemical waste entering the river from identified grossly polluting units.

    c) The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) is a government-funded initiative.

    d) The National River Ganga Basin Authority was founded under this concept, and Ganga was declared a national river of India.

    e) The Ministry of Environment and Forests took up the first River Action Plan, the Ganga Action Plan, in 1985.

    f) Since then, the program’s scope has expanded to include all of the country’s major rivers, with the National River Conservation Plan– NRCP extending the programme to other significant rivers in 1995.

    Why need a Ganga Action Plan?

    1. During the late 1970s, the development in industrialization and urbanization resulted in a significant increase in the discharge of untreated sewage into water bodies.

    
    

    2. This increased level of pollution raised the risk of water- borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and other illnesses, as well as reduced the supply of clean drinking water.

    3. Due to behaviour's such as open defecation, the release of untreated industrial runoff, and other factors, the major river, Ganga, experienced a significant increase in contamination.

    4. All of this happened as a result of a lack of public knowledge and no rules in place to keep these sectors under control.

    
    

    GAP Objectives 

    ✓ The GAP’s ultimate goal is to develop an integrated river basin management approach that takes

    into account the different dynamic interactions between abiotic and biotic ecosystems.

    ✓ Non-point pollution from agricultural runoff, human excrement, cow wallowing, and the dumping

    of unburned or half-burned bodies into rivers must be controlled.

    ✓ Research and development to protect the river’s biological variety and increase its productivity.

    ✓ New sewage treatment technologies, such as the Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) and

    sewage treatment through afforestation, has been developed effectively.

    ✓ The use of soft-shelled turtles for river pollution abatement has been proven and found to be

    beneficial.

    ✓ Resource recovery options have been demonstrated, such as methane production for energy

    generation and aquaculture for revenue creation.

    ✓ To serve as a model for implementing comparable action initiatives in other heavily contaminated

    river segments.

    
    

    GAP Phase I

    1. Three states were covered in the first phase.

    2. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal are the three states that make up Uttar Pradesh.

    3. Began in January 1986 and Ended in March 2000.

    4. This phase was a completely government-funded project aimed at preventing pollution of the Ganga.

    5. The GAP Phase-1 cost a total of Rs.452 crores to complete.

    6. This strategy was developed based on a study conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 1984.

    7. In 1985, the total sewage generated from 25 Class 1 municipalities was projected to be roughly 1340 million litres per day, according to the CPCB survey.

    8. A total of 261 pollution abatement projects covering 25 towns in three states, namely Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Bihar, were sanctioned at a cost of Rs. 462 crore to complete this mission.

    9. On March 31, 2000, the GAP-1 was declared closed. A sewage treatment capacity of 865 million litres per day was established as part of this proposal.

    
    

    GAP Phase II

    1. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Delhi, and Haryana were included in Phase 2.

    2. The Yamuna, Gomti, Mahananda, and Damodar tributaries of the Ganga were included in Phase 2.

    3. Phase 1 of the Ganga Action Plan did not address the whole extent of the river's pollution, GAP Phase 2, which included plans for the Yamuna, Damodar, and Gomti in addition to the Ganga, was approved in stages between 1993 and 1996.

    4. Under two different programmes, the Ganga Action Plan Phase – II and the National River Conservation Plan (NRCP), with the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) as its parent body, the initiative was extended to other major rivers in India (from the year 2014).

    5. The Yamuna and Gomti Action Plans were adopted as part of GAP Phase II in April 1993.

    6. Following that, in 1995, the NRCP approved projects for several major rivers.

    7. Following the establishment of the NRCP in 1995, the Ganga Action Plan-2 was merged with the NRCP.

    
    

    Outside agencies role in Ganga Action Plan
    

    1. The japan international corporation Agency (JICA) has offered technical support for a Development Study on the "Water Quality Management Plan for Ganga" .

    2. It focuses on four towns: Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, and Varanasi.

    3. The JICA Study Team/Consultants hired by JICA to conduct the study began working in March 2003 and finished in August/September 2005.

    4. The study's main goal was to create Master Plans and Feasibility Studies for the four towns' sewerage (including sewage treatment) and non-sewerage components.

    5. The JICA Study Team had submitted a Master Plan and Feasibility Studies report for sewerage and non-sewerage works in Varanasi town in the first phase during 2004-05, based on which the JBIC had signed an agreement with the Government of India for providing a loan for taking up pollution abatement schemes of the river Ganga in this town at an estimated cost of Rs.540 crore (13.248 billion Yen).

    6. JICA has received the final Feasibility Study Reports for the remaining three towns of Allahabad, Kanpur, and Lucknow, which include the opinions of the respective organizations.

    7. The cost of GAP-II projects in the three towns is expected to be Rs.1100 crore (Allahabad- Rs.305 crore, Kanpur-Rs.425 crore & Lucknow-Rs.375 crore).