After Hindu priests’ espousal of the “green” cause, the imams of several mosques located alongside the Yamuna on Friday during khutba (prayers) urged their community members to ensure cleaning of the Yamuna river.
For the last few days, Hindu priests of major temples situated along the banks of the Yamuna have taken initiatives, sensitising Delhiites not to dispose of waste items like clothes, old idols, calendars, posters, flowers among others in the river.
Efforts to clean the river are being carried out through wide-ranging awareness
campaigns, including discouraging people from throwing waste into it.
The imams reminded their community members that Islam gives primacy to cleanliness — of the mind, soul, body, house, neighbourhood and water bodies like rivers and canals.
“If the Yamuna river is clean, it is good for Muslims as they perform ablution in the river itself and offer namaz (prayers),” they said.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) VK Saxena had launched the Yamuna cleanliness drive on February 16 and after inspecting cleaning work at the Qudsiya Ghat, he had said that the target is to rejuvenate the Delhi stretch of the river by June 30.
“The recent efforts by the L-G towards cleaning and rejuvenation of the Yamuna have begun to show visible and concrete results,” said Muslim clergies after Friday namaz at mosques in Dwarka, Rohini, Darya Ganj and Dargah Hazrat Nizamuddin.
“Even as critical steps to clean the Najafgarh drain and restore the Yamuna floodplains have been going on in the right earnest, efforts at preventing disposal of physical waste into the river have started bearing results,” they noted.
In view of the extreme importance of public participation in the Yamuna rejuvenation efforts, it has been decided to undertake wide ranging awareness generation and motivational IEC (information, education and communication) campaigns on various media platforms.
Various macro and micro-level steps have been taken by a high-level committee chaired by the LG, formed at the direction of National Green Tribunal, that have begun showing results in the shape of relatively improved pollution levels in the Yamuna where the Najafgarh drain empties into the river, the L-G office had earlier said.
Trapping of sub-drains flowing into the Najafgarh drain, restoration of floodplains at Kudasia Ghat, Asita East, Baansera and the stretch between Bela Farm and Garhi Mandu, are other initiatives for rejuvenation of the river and its floodplain. Earlier this week, Saxena inspected the 11-km Signature Bridge-ITO Barrage stretch of the Yamuna on a boat and said he was exploring the chances of starting boat rides on the 22-km stretch in the future. He was accompanied by Delhi Government officials, mediapersons and NDRF teams in over twenty-five boats.
