Green court sets up expert panel to expedite work for cleaning Yamuna
NEW DELHI: A day after rapping the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) for its tardy efforts in cleaning the Yamuna river, the National Green Tribunal ( NGT) on Thursday set up an expert committee to expedite the process.
A bench, headed by NGT chairperson Justice AK Goel, appointed retired expert member BS Sajwan and former Delhi chief secretary Shailaja Chandra to be part of the committee, which has been asked to draw up an action plan for the task by September and submit a detailed report in the matter by December 31, 2018. The bench also directed the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to assist the committee.
Meanwhile, the green tribunal also directed the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the DJB to hold a meeting on Monday and identify land for setting up of sewage treatment plants (STPS) as part of phase II of the Yamuna cleaning programme.
The phase-i of the Yamuna cleaning project aims at lowering pollution levels in the Najafgarh and Delhi Gate drains, while Phase-ii deals with drains in Shahdara and Barapullah.
On Wednesday, the green court had noted that work on 14 sewage treatment plants (STPS) — which was scheduled to be completed by March, 2017 as per the NGT’S January 2015 order — had not even begun. Irritated with this, the bench had, on Wednesday, criticised the DJB and observed that no “meaningful progress” was made on the ground in the last three years.
“Today, we are in a failure situation. We don’t want useless and incompetent people, who have failed us, the people and the country,” the NGT bench had observed on Wednesday.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the situation, the tribunal had directed the CEO of the DJB to put in place a suitable officer who can ensure that work on the 14 STPS starts within a month.
The Yamuna river flows for around 46 km in Delhi and is less than two per cent of the river’s entire length but the national Capital contributes to nearly 70% of the river’s pollution.