BJP, Cong slam Kejriwal over his 6-point action plan to clean Yamuna

The CM was on Thursday criticised for his action plan by the opposition parties in Delhi

The BJP and Congress slammed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday over his six-point action plan to clean the Yamuna, saying the river was heavily polluted despite his repeated promises.

Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said it was being promised since 2013 that the stretch of the Yamuna river in the national capital would be made suitable for bathing and look like the Thames in London.

"Despite Kejriwal talking about this for years... the condition of the river has only worsened," he alleged.

Gupta claimed the Union government had given Rs 2,409 crore to the Kejriwal dispensation for cleaning the Yamuna, "but nobody knows where the money went".

"On other days Kejriwal simply don't remember about pollution and now he suddenly talks about cleaning the Yamuna," he said.

Kejriwal on Thursday said his government has prepared a six-point plan to clean the Yamuna river to bathing standards by February 2025. He said the government is constructing new sewage treatment plants (STPs) as well as increasing the capacity of the existing ones and upgrading those.

BJP MP from northeast Delhi Manoj Tiwari demanded the AAP government brings out a 'white paper' on cleaning the Yamuna and others steps taken to address the problem of pollution in the city.

Delhi Congress president Anil Kunar said the Kejriwal government spent crores of rupees in the last seven years in the name of cleaning up the river, yet its water was more toxic than ever.

He accused Kejriwal of trying to divert the attention of Delhiites from the severe air pollution by announcing the Yamuna cleaning programme.

"Kejriwal has set 2025 as the deadline for cleaning up the Yamuna river. This makes it clear that the Yamuna will flow like a huge drain in the next three years and crores of rupees will go down the drain in corruption yet again," Kumar alleged.

"What was the Kejriwal government doing in the past seven years? Cleaning up the highly polluted Yamuna river was one of the main points of AAP's election manifesto and Kejriwal had promised in 2015 that he will clean up the Yamuna in four years, which he never fulfilled," he said.

Pictures and videos showing devotees offering prayers in the Yamuna on the occasion of Chhath Puja with foam floating on the surface of the river had triggered a political slugfest between the ruling AAP and the BJP in Delhi.

The 22-kilometre stretch of the Yamuna between Wazirabad and Okhla, which is less than two per cent of the river's length of 1,370 kilometres from Yamunotri to Allahabad, accounts for around 80 per cent of the pollution load in it.

According to experts, the primary reason behind 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.

The poor quality of effluent discharged from common effluent treatment plants 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.