A legislative bill to put in place the mechanism to ensure that the polluted Yamuna in the city is cleaned remains one of the unfinished tasks of former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh who has now taken the charge of the Union rural development ministry and is now in the midst of drafting the Land Acquisition Bill.
The ambitious bill on cleaning the Yamuna in the city along with an exhaustive report of the Yamuna River Development Authority was submitted by the Delhi lieutenant-governor Tejendra Khanna to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year. However, there appears no forward movement on the legislative proposal despite Mr Ramesh having shown a lot of zeal in taking steps to clean the polluted river.
“Six months back, the Cabinet secretariat had sought some clarifications on the legislative proposal submitted by the lieutenant-governor, which were provided without loss of time. The proposal still remains with the Prime Minister’s Office,” said a senior official.
The report which was submitted to the Prime Minister was prepared after 24 exhaustive sittings of the authority. Mr Ramesh had even taken boat rides in the polluted Yamuna and collected samples, the official added. Mr Khanna had reportedly suggested a tripartite agreement among the upper riparian states of the Yamuna to enlist their commitment in efforts to clean the river. “Mr Ramesh had shown lot of interests in the work done by us to get statutory approval to the mechanism to ensure that the Yamuna is revived in the capital. But the fact remains that there has been no forward movement,” said the official.
A two-pronged strategy was suggested to ensure that the Yamuna comes back to life again in the city, which included creation of a reservoir in one of the upper riparian states to ensure continuous flow of water and another of physical cleaning to clear the garbage in the river. The creation of a reservoir required a tripartite agreement among the states.