NEW DELHI: Taking a swipe at the pollution level of Yamuna, the Delhi Congress asked the government to take practical steps to clean the river rather than focusing on 'cruise tourism'.
Citing the latest report by the Delhi Pollution Control Board (DPCC), the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Devender Yadav said that the BJP Government should take urgent, practical steps to clean up the toxic Yamuna, instead of indulging in gimmicks.
He also stated that the pollution level in the river was now 6400 times higher than the maximum permissible limit.
In a media statement issued by the party, Yadav wondered who would take a boat ride through the poisonous stretch of Yamuna in Delhi when breathing near the river has become such a serious health hazard.
The report, dated February 28, found that faecal coliform levels at Asgarpur, where the river exits Delhi, reached 16 million units per 100 millilitres — 6,400 times the permissible limit set by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
This marks the highest recorded contamination since December 2020, when it was 1.2 billion/100ml.
“Many colonies in Delhi are being supplied polluted water that is not even fit for washing clothes, forcing the poor people to depend on the tanker mafia and bottled water for drinking. However, one of the poll 'guarantees' of the BJP was that it would get down to serious business immediately on coming back to power to provide potable drinking water through the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) pipelines,” Yadav said.
“The BJP Government has not fulfilled any of its election promises. It is delaying the implementation of all promises by one pretext or another. Cleaning the Yamuna from pollutants was one of the issues being kept on hold," he said.
"When Delhi BJP president Virender Sachdeva took a dip in the dirty Yamuna to gain some pre-poll political publicity, people thought that BJP would give priority in cleaning the Yamuna when it comes to power. However, it only seems to have kept the cleaning of the river on the back burner,” he added.
