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Wednesday, August 09, 2017
Speed up work to clean Yamuna: NGT
Correspondent : TNN
NEW DELHI: Disappointed with the delay in implementing 'Mailey se Nirmal YamunaRevitalization Project', National Green Tribunal (NGT) warned on Tuesday that there should be no interference or undue delay in implementing it.

In 2015, the tribunal laid out the plan focused on plugging discharge of untreated sewage into the Yamuna by setting up a network of decentralised sewage treatment plants (STPs). Its phase 1 was to be completed by 2017.

In a stock-taking meeting on Tuesday, NGT said phase 1, which involves constructing 14 STPs to treat sewage coming from the Najafgarh drain, should be completed as planned. According to the lawyers who attended the meeting, NGT also said officials would be penalised or sent for civil imprisonment if they didn't comply with its orders.

About 64% of pollution on the Delhi stretch of the Yamuna is contributed by two feeder drains — Najafgarh and Delhi Gate. Rural Najafgarh doesn't have any sewerage system.

The project could not take off until this year because of a confusion between the Delhi government and the Centre over funding of the project. NGT, in a 2016 order, had termed these excuses as "frivolous and casual".

On Tuesday, the lawyer of Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Kush Sharma, submitted that it had released Rs 37 crore out of its share of Rs 300 to the Delhi government while National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) had given Rs 47 crore (of Rs 350 crore) for phase 1. The Delhi government will have to pay around Rs 300 crore for seven STPs. Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials told NGT that the agency had received the amount and the work had started. NGT directed DJB to implement the project expeditiously.

The Delhi assembly's estimate committee, which is probing alleged irregularities of Rs 776.7 crore in the construction of these 14 STPs by DJB, has opined that even before these 14 STPs were built, the existing STPs running under capacity should be optimised. The committee was referring to a Central Pollution Control Board(CPCB) report that had concluded the same and said Delhi needed to plan how to re-use treated sewage water before planning more STPs.

An interceptor sewer system, which is meant to stop sewage from drains in urban Najafgarh and the surrounding areas to flow into the Yamuna, was to be completed before the Commonwealth Games in 2010. The Rs 1,394-crore project was finally commissioned in 2011 and is likely to be completed by March 2018. Till then, the Yamuna's condition would continue to deteriorate with all untreated sewage entering the river.

NGT, on Tuesday, also directed Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana government representatives to conduct surveys and check all pollution sources that are discharging into their Yamuna stretches. It also directed all four states to file project reports on how they would clean up the river. The case will be heard again on September 15.

The DJB, during its site inspections, had noted in JUly that hutments, cowsheds/dairies, dhobi ghats and parking spots were seen on the left bank of the Yamuna within the floodplain boundary. "These activities contribute to the pollution to the river," it said.

 
SOURCE : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/speed-up-work-to-clean-yamuna-ngt/articleshow/59976977.cms
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