“We are discussing whether or not the sands can be mined from the river and then auctioned. In this process, the Government can save funds to utilise it for cleaning the river and will simultaneously curb illegal sand mining,” Delhi Revenue Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan said. The Minister has held a meeting to this effect on Tuesday.

The sand mining mafia is clandestinely working to change the course of the river. The river is silently being robbed of its sand right under the nose of the administration and police. In the Palla area, just before the river is channelled into the Wazirabad canal, a temporary bank has been created in the middle of the Yamuna to trap sand, effectively shifting its flow more towards the Delhi border and creating a small sand island. Each day, hundreds of truckloads of sand is being carried out by the miners, who police say are residents of nearby villages. Each truckload is sold for about Rs 800 on the outskirts of Delhi, basically for construction purposes.

According to Chauhan, as per initial plan, the stretch between Palla barrage to Okhla barrage have been divided into five zones to remove filth from the river bed. “The Government would ask environment department and other concerned agencies to conduct a study to this effect so that the government could start auctioning of sand from the riverbed,” said Chauhan adding illegal sand mining is rampant on the riverbed. The Minister further said that it would help the Yamuna river to revive or to store more water.

Over Rs 1,200 crore have been spent in the past one decade but the Yamuna is still dirty. The latest report from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), says the river is so full of excreta that its water resembles that of a drain. According to stipulated standards, water can be made potable with treatment if fecal coliform is less than 500 per 100ml and it’s fit for bathing if the number is less than 5,000 per 100ml. According to CPCB’s 10-month-long monitoring of the Yamuna at Nizamuddin, the lowest level of fecal coliform in the water was 4.4 lakh per 100ml, measured on May 4, 2009. That’s almost 100 times above the level considered safe for bathing. Fecal coliform are bacteria that originate in excreta. Coliform levels reached as high as 1.79 crore per 100ml on February 3. Drinking water without conventional treatment but after use of disinfectant should not have a coliform count in excess of 50 per 100ml and must have a minimum DO of 6mg per litre.