The Delhi Government’s mega plan for revitalisation of the Yamuna in the city needs huge expenditure. It has requested the Centre to provide it an additional financial assistance of Rs1,656 crore. The Union Urban Development Ministry has already earmarked Rs1,640 crore for Yamuna-III project.
This amount is in addition to what the Urban Development Ministry had already earmarked for the project. Now, Delhi Government’s Principal Secretary (Urban Development) Chetan Sanghi has written to the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) that the additional money was urgently required to speed up cleaning of the Yamuna.
“The sharing of the funds should be on 85:15 basis between the Centre and the Delhi Government on the pattern of Yamuna Action Plan-III funding. Sufficient funds may be made available every year to the DJB through the Delhi Government as part of annual budgetary exercise till the payment of annuity is completed. The projects, planned under YAP-III for Delhi with financial assistance from the JICA amounting to Rs1,656 crore, may be continued separately as these are also very important for abatement of pollution in the Yamuna.
“As Delhi Jal Board does not have sufficient experience of implementing the projects as annuity mode, it is further requested that a transaction adviser may be appointed by the Ministry of Water Resources to help the DJB in preparing bid document and to manage the bid process,” the letter said.
The Delhi Government was so far in a dilemma on how to go-ahead with its clean Yamuna project as both Japan International Cooperative Agency and the Union Urban Development Ministry had earlier shown their reluctance to finance the Delhi Jal Board for cleaning of the river.
Estimates suggest that the Government would reportedly require Rs20,000 crore for the clean Yamuna project. Union Government’s Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Secretary Shashi Shekhar had recently written to National Green Tribunal chairman Justice Swatanter Kumar that it would be difficult for any Government to provide huge amount to the tune of Rs3,000 crore in a single year or two for such projects.
In his letter, Shekhar said, “The committee discussed that it would be difficult for any Government/Government body to provide huge amount to the order of Rs3,000 crore in a single year or two. Secondly, the total amount required to complete the Master Plan is of the order of Rs20,000 crore and that only on implementation of the entire Master Plan, the Yamuna would be free from untreated sewage.”
Delhi Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra had recently claimed that the river water would be of bathing quality within three years, but at present the Yamuna was a swamp of tar-coloured toxic waste, its water bubbling ominously as noxious fumes were being emitted from the untreated sewage flowing through it.
Several thousand crores of rupees have been spent on cleaning the Yamuna over the years but to absolutely no effect.
There are at least four committees or agencies supervising rejuvenation of the river including a high powered committee, a unified centre, a Yamuna riverfront development project and a biodiversity foundation but they have done nothing to revive the “dead” river.
A six-member committee comprising officials from the Union Ministries of Water Resources, Urban Development, Surface Transport, and Environment; the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and several other departments under the Delhi Government had already been constituted to prepare a report by September 30.