Govt undertakes project to clean up Yamuna

Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung has ordered construction of a 59 km long interceptor sewer parallel to the three major drains of Delhi. At a meeting at his secretariat on Tuesday, Jung issued a slew of measures for rehabilitation and development of river Yamuna. However, the officials completely ignored implementation of the ‘much hyped’ Gujarat model of Sabarmati River as it was not compatible. 

The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) will set up an interceptor sewer with a length of 59 kms along the three major drains (supplementary, Najafgarh and Shahdara) to intercept sewerage from around 190 subsidiary small drains and transport it to the nearest Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) to ensure that only treated effluent is discharged into these major drains. ‘Around 70 per cent of pollution load in the river shall be reduced by this effort,’ said a statement issued by the Lt Governor’s office on Tuesday. The already existing interceptor sewer between Aruna Nagar JJ Cluster up to the outfall of Khyber Pass drain, which intercepts untreated sewage from Sweeper Colony, Magazine Road and Khyber Pass drain, will be made fully-functional by June 2015. The discharge intercepted from these drains shall be pumped to Nigam Bodh SPS and taken to the existing Okhla STP, which has a total treatment capacity of 170 MGD.

Metcalf House, Qudsia, Mori Gate, Tonga Stand, Civil Military drain shall be intercepted into the existing Ring Road trunk sewer which has recently been rehabilitated under Yamuna Action Plan-II. The sewage collected from these drains shall be pumped to Okhla STP through Ring Road SPS and this work shall be completed by June next year.

The capacity of the STP at the mouth of the Delhi Gate drain can be augmented from existing 2.2 to 17.2 MGD by constructing an additional 15 MGD STP, said Delhi government officials.

The move comes after a team of Delhi government officials visited Gujarat earlier this month to study Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati riverfront project.

The DJB is also in the process of laying of sewerage system in unsewered area for which Sewerage Master Plan 2031 has been prepared.