Weakened flow is killing the Yamuna.
Ahead of Delhi polls, many articles on Yamuna cleaning emerged, highlighting sewage treatment up to mandatory tertiary discharge standards as key solution.
A spate of articles on cleaning the Yamuna appeared around the Delhi assembly elections in February. Among the solutions talked about was the treatment of sewage till it attains the mandatory, tertiary treatment level discharge standards. Capital and technology for this solution are readily available, and now, so is the political drive. Given these drivers, the river water ought to achieve bathing quality in the near future.
However, the single-minded focus on pollution of the river has resulted in a tunnel vision, where the critical issue of adequate flow in the river doesn’t attract similar fervour of action. The inadequacy of flow has, along with pollution and colonisation of the floodplains, destroyed many forms of riverine fauna and amphibians. While the Gazetteer of Delhi, 1975, listed 65 species of fish in the river, a recent survey found only four and that too stunted in size. Aquatic life needs both clean water as well as adequate flow and depth. For that matter, the cruises proposed along the Yamuna would also require both conditions to be met.
