Uttar Pradesh government spokesman and minister Sidharth Nath Singh slammed the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi for exposing thousands of people from UP and Bihar offering Chhath Puja prayers to multiple health risks by neglecting cleaning of the river Yamuna ahead of the festival.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Singh launched a scathing attack on the AAP government led by Arvind Kejriwal for its “callousness towards the people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar”.
“The AAP government of Delhi left workers from UP and Bihar in the lurch during the first spell of the novel coronavirus pandemic in April 2020, forcing them to flee the national capital. And now, they have done nothing to clean the river Yamuna, which is highly polluted, ahead of Chhath festival, exposing devotees to multiple health hazards. A total of 730 MLD (million litres per day) of sewage is released into the Yamuna against Delhi’s capacity to treat only 550 MLD of waste and as many as 18 large sewer lines culminate into the Yamuna,” Singh said.
The UP minister made the statement following media reports about devotees taking a holy dip in the Yamuna despite the toxic foam floating on the water surface. It may be mentioned that millions of people observe fast and take the holy dip on the occasion of Chhath Puja across the country. The Uttar Pradesh government has taken a number of measures in the recent past to clean the river Ganga and in this process several polluting tanneries have even been shut down by the Yogi Adityanath government in Kanpur.