Yamuna revival: Challenges remain amid renewed political resolve

These areas had come up without any sewerage infrastructure or any other facilities, the waste generated in these areas finally reached Yamuna, which, paradoxically, turned into a natural drain of the city. In 2006, 46% of Delhi areas had no sewerage infrastructure, perhaps something exceptional in reference to any national capital of the world. It’s not that elected representatives were ignorant about the malady, they felt compelled to join the game being part of the competitive populism. Besides entry of untreated waste, both domestic and industrial, the river suffered because of the rampant encroachment of its floodplains. Historically, Yamuna waters were shared between erstwhile Punjab, now Haryana, and UP. Delhi got Yamuna share for the first time when in May, 1994, an MOU was signed by the basin states. Delhi, however, had been using these waters since 1930 when its first WTP, namely Chanrawal, was completed. With increasing demands of Delhi, all releases of fresh water downstream Wazirabad stopped and the river stretch from Wazirabad to Okhla started receiving mostly the untreated sewage, including the industrial waste, through various drains of Delhi, converting this portion of the river into an open sewer instead. Since it would not have been possible to provide sewerage- infrastructure in the unplanned habitations quickly, and the growth of such habitations kept growing, things worsened instead of improving.