Rs 1,503 cr spent in past 6 yrs to clean Yamuna

The Centre has in the past six years disbursed over Rs 1,500 crore to Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in its efforts to keep the Yamuna clean. The maximum share of funds, Rs 1,091 crore, went to the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) alone.

This was stated by Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti Raj Bhushan Choudhary, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha. The amount given to DJB was meant for construction and maintenance of STPs and laying of sewer lines, among other things.

The minister said the water quality of Yamuna was assessed monthly by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in association with state pollution control boards under the National Water Quality Monitoring Programme (NWMP). He said the river got contaminated manifold after it entered Delhi as dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), fecal coliform (FC) and other parameters showed alarming change.

The value of fecal coliform, which is the most probable number of organisms per 100 ML, is 2 lakh at Yamunotri in Uttarakhand and 2.85 lakh when it's measured in Delhi after the confluence of Shahdara and Tughlakabad drains. However, the fecal coliform value has decreased in the past six years. In 2019, it was 31 lakh, 17 lakh in 2020, 15.2 lakh in 2021 and 8 lakh in 2022.