Hemkund, a glacial lake, is situated in the Nanda Devi Biospehere Reserve in Uttaranchal. The tenth Guru of the Sikhs is known to have meditated near the lake before assuming the human avatar. The pilgrimage includes a 19-kms trek after reaching the base camp at Gobind Ghat. But my problem started from Delhi itself as we left with a 150 people strong ‘religious troupe.’ They distributed ice-creams as soon as we started the wrappers of which everybody threw happily out of the bus even as they sang religious hymns. I managed to procure a polythene (for all my hate for the thing!) in which I collected the wrappers that I took from my parents and aunt and brother.

On the way from Shrinagar to Govind Ghat in the third day of journey from where we were supposed to start the trek, the group decided to stop near the banks of the river Alaknanda and prepare lunch. As some elders cooked, all others went down to the river bank to cool their heels; and also took along their soft drink bottles and tin cans. “Such is nature’s paradox. Even as the sun is lashing down on us, there is ice-cold water that provides relief. You do not get to see this ever in Delhi,” said a young man in the group as he sipped from his can of Pepsi. The next moment brought exactly what I dreaded. The can was flowing with the ‘ice-cold water.’ We went up to the road side for lunch. The site was chosen not just because of proximity to the river but also for a hand-pump that was much needed for cooking and washing. An old ascetic lived in a shack near the hand-pump who I am sure was used to the ‘loud’ Punjabis by now. The food tasted good but not the after-affects. The disposable plates were thrown in a pile near the ascetic’s shack along with the leftover food and other vegetable waste. This I could not collect in my polythene and my brother jeered at my obvious misery.

“Oye Environment! if you think too much, you will not be able to enjoy your vacation,” he said.

That is how my family has come to address me as in the last few years.

While talking about the role of religion in Environment conservation, Shrivatsa Goswami, a Mahant in Vrindavan told us last year that the quality of river water in a region talks a lot about the character of people in that region. If the river is pristine, people are still honest and sincere while its vice-versa in places where the river is dirty. I recalled this as we approached Govind Ghat. Parallel to the river, just a little higher, one could see a stream of vehicles, in all hues and sizes. There were more than a lakh pilgrims at Govind Ghat that day. The hoardings stating the presence of an eco-development committee were re-assuring but only for a short time. The claims that garbage is sent down to the plains for processing was trashed soon when I saw the sweepers off-loading their trolleys on the hill side, straight down into the river. I don’t know how long will the river remain pristine there.

Having reached the Gurudwara before my family, I was waiting outside when the organizer of our group came by. Trying my best not to sound like an ‘activist’ I asked him if it was possible that the pilgrims brought their own steel utensils for the food served on the way. “We tried doing this, but people are not admitting at all. They think it is extra luggage. We even tried carrying it for them but they are not happy even washing them,” said Bubble, as he was called by all of them. I wondered how people managed before “disposable plates” were invented.

Soon, I saw my mother and aunt who proudly showed me their shopping for the next day’s trek: five wooden sticks and five raincoats, costing Rs 10 each and made of polythene. “They are so cheap, one can even throw them after use,” said my aunt. Yeah! I glared at her. The next day, I was to see a lot of them covering bushes as we climbed the mountain.

19 kms of trek might not be an easy feat for all age groups. But more than the strength, I realized it was the religious drive that was edging most people when I looked back at the stream of humanity climbing up. Apart from the mules and piggy backs and ‘Palkis’ carrying those who could afford them, there were also people as old as 80 and kids as young as 4-5 who climbed uncomplainingly, with a prayer on their lips. I made some friends amongst these fellow Moksha seekers who were surprised like a child at every glacier, stream and unusual looking bushes and fruits. I also made a few friends who wondered why can’t there be a road from Govind Ghat to Hemkund. “Afterall, lakhs of people go up every year. The government should think on these lines,” said a professor from Punjab. “Moksha is not so easy, Prof,” I said to myself but dreaded the idea of blasting the mountains for the road.

Well, the trek did not turn out to be as difficult with the Dhabas at every turn selling all sorts of things, from raincoats to Glucon-D to packaged drinking water. Infact, I received a piece of advice as I filled my bottle from a stream on the way. “This water might be polluted, you will fall sick,” said one elderly lady. I recalled the ads of Himalaya and Ganga bottled water that claim the water to be especially “packaged from the mountain streams.” I wondered if that was safer because it was sold for Rs 15 a litre and not free like this stream. Here, I had another tussle with my family as they bought bottles of Limca. “They have sweepers all along the way to take the garbage down and recycle it,” my father said. One such sweeper was lighting a pile of garbage with his ‘beedi’ on my way back. I had become an old-fashioned cynic; I slapped myself on the head.

My mother, whose last trip to Hemkund was 30 years ago, said that things used to be very different back then. “There were not so many shops. Very few people went up because we had to walk on the glacier after the first 4-5 kms of the trek. The Hemkund ‘sarovar’ itself had little water as the rest was frozen and it was a challenge to take even a single dip in the ice-cold water, a ritual around which the pilgrimage is based,” she said. Well, we did not get a chance to walk on the snow but I was amazed to see the blue lake. The water was chilly but felt calming after the long trek.

As the atheist me sat there wondering how the Guru managed to find such a beautiful place to meditate, I heard the statutory announcements from the Gurudwara behind the lake.

“This is the Guru’s abode, all the pilgrims coming up should take care that they do not soil the surroundings. Please do not eat and throw chips packets and bottles around,” said the Granthi.

I wondered if anybody was listening.

ENVIRONMENTALIST G D Agarwal has managed to stall the controversial Loharinag Pala power project coming up speedily on the Bhagirathi, a tributary of the Ganga. On February 20, the Ministry of Power assured him work on the dam would be suspended immediately. Following this, Agarwal who was into the 37th day of his hunger strike, broke his fast.

This was the second time Agarwal, former member secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board, went on a hunger strike demanding a ban on hydropower projects on the crucial 125 km stretch of the Ganga between Uttarkashi and Gangotri and to allow the river to flow naturally (see ‘Myth of power’, Down To Earth, September 1-15, 2008).

In June 2008, he had called off his nine-day fast after the Uttarakhand government suspended work on two hydropower projects at Pala Maneri and Bhairon Ghati, upstream of Uttarkashi district. However, work on the Loharinag-Pala hydropower project, being executed by the National Thermal Power Corporation in Uttarakashi, did not stop. Agarwal resumed his hunger strike on January 14.

To pacify him, the Union power ministry sent him a letter on February 5 promising to keep a minimum flow of 16 cubic metre per second (cumecs) at the Loharinag-Pala dam site during the lean season in winter. The ministry assured no other project would come up on the Bhagirathi.

In his reply to power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Agarwal said he had been “duped” by the ministry. Citing a similar letter written by the ministry on June 30, Agarwal said he was led to believe the ministry was committed to conserving the Bhagirathi.

“I broke my annshan (fast). But now, I have realized where the commitments of your ministry lie,” said Agarwal. He was referring to the report of the expert committee, set up by the ministry, which said only four cumecs water flow can be maintained at the site once the dam comes up.

“I doubt the power ministry’s credibility and do not plan to enter into any contact or communication with it until all work on Loharinag Pala has been completely stopped,” the environmentalist said.

Managers for Ganga
The Centre has notified the Ganga River Basin Authority, which will be responsible for comprehensive management of the Ganga river basin. It will be headed by the prime minister. The authority will have chief ministers of the five Ganga basin states—Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal—on board. The ministers of water resources, environment and forests, finance, urban development and science and technology will also be members.

“The body will see that development requirements (such as construction of hydropower projects) are met in a sustainable manner while ensuring ecological flows,” said a press release issued by the prime minister’s office (pmo) on February 17. The body will not be a separate additional clearance mechanism. Rather, it will develop a management plan for the river basin and address pollution abatement measures by ensuring adequate ecological flow in the river. Specific interventions for sewage treatment have also been planned.

Environmentalists have been quick to criticize the notification.

“The term ‘ecological flow’ is tricky,” said Pavitra Kumar, a close associate of Agarwal. “Ecological flow means maintaining adequate water flow in the river just for its ecological health. The authority should have used the term ‘environmental flow’ which also accounts for human needs such as groundwater recharge potential of the river,”

said Kumar.

Others said the notification is just another political ploy.
“Announcement to set up a new authority ahead of the elections is merely a move to prevent the (opposition) Bharatiya Janta Party from cashing in on the Ganga controversy,” said Vimal Bhai, head of Matu People’s Organization, an environmental group active in Uttarakhand. The matter will be dragged on till the elections and then forgotten because even the Congress is not against the dams, Vimal Bhai said.

The settlers were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They grew vegetables, flowers, wheat and rice on the land rented from people who once held land lease given by the irrigation department. Pappu of Kaimur district in Bihar had rented about 6 ha at Nayabaans close to the Okhla Bird Park and DND flyway for Rs 6,000 per hectare for a year. While he farmed, his younger siblings studied in a makeshift school. He lost his month-old vegetable crop and has nowhere to go.

“They just came in the evening and trampled all over the vegetables and flooded the fields. Had they at least given us a notice we would not have sown crops. I had invested Rs 15,000-20,000 on wheat.”

said Sauraj Singh Kashyap of Hapur in Uttar Pradesh. H C Malhotra, a member of literacy organization Gyan Jyoti Vidyalaya, which set up the makeshift school in the area, said “These people have not made permanent structures on the riverbed. They were merely making a living out of agriculture.”

The irrigation department said it had cancelled all leases in 1999 but people continued to possess the land. “About seven people had pattas over this 25 ha. They filed cases in court and the hearing is on,” said a department official. “This was not a demolition exercise, so a court order was not needed. We just removed people who had encroached upon the department’s land,” added the official.

Sohanpal of Dallupura village in Noida does not agree.

“The land was given to us in 1948 when the British left, and ever since my family has been cultivating it. My case is being heard in the sub divisional magistrate’s court in Dadri,”

he said.

What development?

The Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department got some land in the National Capital Territory along the Yamuna Pushta road in 1956 for its maintenance. It is now transferring 362 ha of it in Delhi and 32.5 ha in Noida to the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, also called Noida authority. The places where the land is being transferred are Madanpur Khadar, Sarita Vihar, Jamia Nagar and patches between Chilla Regulator and the Shahdara railway bridge. About 55.5 ha in Madanpur Khadar and 128 ha in Sarita Vihar and Jamia Nagar have been transferred.

The Noida authority said the land is being transferred for development but refused to specify the kind of development.

“The irrigation department is unable to do any development there because it does not come under its purview. We will take up development in accordance with the Masterplan of Delhi 2021. I cannot comment on the land in Noida,”

said Rajpal Kaushik, senior town planner of the authority.

Kaushik also said the Noida authority would request the Delhi Development Authority for change of land use, deepening people’s suspicion that it plans commercial development on the floodplain. Under the Delhi master plan most land near the Yamuna is for greenery and recreation.

An official of the irrigation department said the Noida authority would develop a green belt on the land. “Why can’t the department do so? By next year, I am sure there will be construction near the Okhla Bird Park,” said Anand Arya, a bird watcher who regularly visits the park.

Construction of an embankment along the 10-km stretch of the Sabarmati has begun in Ahmedabad despite warnings that it may hamper natural drainage in the city and that its design is inherently flawed. The 8.5-m-high embankment is part of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, the first in India where the river will be squeezed to yield land for commercial, residential and open spaces. Project planners expect to recover the cost by selling this real estate.

The project’s Environment Impact Assessment (eia) report, however, said that embanking the Sabarmati would not just prevent drainage and “cordon the river away from the people”. It would also increase its speed, thereby increasing erosion that would affect the stability of the retaining walls and bridges. The report was prepared by the Ahmedabad-based Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology and the Gujarat Ecology Commission in Vadodara. Project designer hcp Design and Project Management Pvt Ltd, formerly called Environmental Planning Collaborative, said drains from low-lying areas would be directed to the river through underground channels. The riverfront project was proposed in 1997 to develop the banks into recreational zones.

But will it? The Sabarmati is a monsoon river that remains partially dry for most part of the year. But for water from the Narmada canal that met it upstream of Ahmedabad, the Sabarmati lacked aesthetic appeal, noted the eia report. “It (riverfront) is unlikely to be an inviting public place conducive to cultural and recreational activities,” eia said.

Inspired by the riverfront development of the Thames in London, the Sabarmati project envisaged channelizing the river into a uniform width of 275 m from the varying 330m to 382 m. Ahmedabad residents feared that constricting the width of the river, would raise the water level. During the 2006 floods, the water level had reached almost the base of the bridges. According to project consultants who prepared reports on flood estimation, the increased speed of the river will bring down the highest flood level. Nonetheless, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation plans to raise the height of bridges with a hydraulic jacking system.

Two consultants were put on the task of flood estimation in the Sabarmati. C C Patel and Associates estimated a peak flood of 0.525 million cubic feet per second (cusecs) and Sheldia Associ ates India estimated 0.594 million cusecs. They recommend building embankments that can withstand a flow of up to 0.475 million cusecs. “Considering the rainfall may not be uniform over the catchment area, they (consultants) have suggested a reduction of 10-20 per cent…. This may have serious implications in case of recurrence of most unlikely event of 5.9 lakh cusecs (0.59 million cusecs) flood,” the eia report said.

EIA had suggested terraced or sloping embankments.

“Sloping embankments offer greater resistance to flood water by helping dampen the flood velocity, dissipate the impact of floods over a much larger surface area and withstand hydraulic pressures several times higher than vertical embankments such as the ones proposed in the project,”

it said.

The flood estimation studies were done before 2002. Since then the rainfall pattern has changed. In August 2006, a flash flood washed away slums and damaged pathways constructed along the river in the first phase of the project. The peak discharge in the river then was less than 0. 3 million cusecs and the estimated loss, Rs 20 crore. “The retaining walls will protect the city against greater floods,” said an official of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Ltd, set up by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to oversee the project.

Environmentalists are sceptical. “They haven’t learnt lessons from the Kosi. Embankments can never stop floods,” said Anupam Mishra, who heads the environment division of Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi. Riverfront development on the Tapi was put on hold after floods in Surat in 2006. Biswaroop Das, faculty member of the Centre for Social Studies, who co-authored a citizens’ report on the Surat floods, said Indian rivers could not be compared to the Thames and the Hudson. “Our rivers are monsoon-fed, while there’s are snow-fed rivers. Why don’t the planners understand this simple fact?” he asked.

The government has decided to declare the Ganga a national river, following campaigns from several quarters to preserve its cultural and religious significance. A High Powered Ganga River Basin Authority, to be chaired by the prime minister, will be set up as an empowered planning, implementing and monitoring authority for the river. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, or MOEF, has decided to conduct a basin-wide pilot study of the ecological impact of hydel projects coming up on the Ganga.

The events were set into motion by a letter written by Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi to Union water resources minister Saifuddin Soz in mid-August. The letter was forwarded to MOEF, which called a n inter-ministerial meeting in September. The decision to carry out the pilot study was taken at the meeting attended by representatives of water resources and power ministries, Central Water Commission, Central Electricity Authority and the National Thermal Power Corporation (ntpc).

The study will be conducted from Dharasu to Gangotri lying in the stretch of the Ganga’s tributary Bhagirathi in Uttarakhand. It will help in the planning of hydropower projects and maintaining adequate water flow in the river for its ecological health. IIT Roorkee and G B Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, Almora, have bee asked to submit proposals for conducting the study.

Projects coming up on the Ganga’s tributaries, the Bhagirathi and the Alaknanda, are planned in such a way that the tunnel of one ends only a small distance before the reservoir of the next one. This will leave no patch of the river to flow freely (see ‘Myth of Power’, Down To Earth, September 1-15, 2008).

Another committee was set up in July by ntpc on the power ministry’s directions to look into the minimum flow required in the Bhagirathi to maintain its ecological health—this is called environmental flow—and to find out the populations of fish and other species around the Loharinag Pala dam and its impact on them. Two projects upstream of Uttarkashi, Bhairon Ghati and Pala Maneri, were stalled after G D Agarwal, former member secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board, went on hunger strike in June. But work on ntpc’s Loharinag Pala project is under way.

The study on environmental flow , done by the National Institute of Hydrology (nih), Roorkee on behalf of ntpc, concluded that a flow of at least 16 cubic metre per second (cumecs) needed to be maintained at the dam site.

“But ntpc’s proposal said only three cumecs will be maintained. We have asked the nih team for clarifications. Only then the final decision (on letting the dam function) will be take,”

said Rajendra Singh, member of the committee. moef recommends a minimum flow of a little less that one cumec, while the Bhagirathi requires 13 cumecs of flow throughout the year to maintain its Class A status. The International Water Management Institute defines a Class A river as one whose water needs little treatment for drinking.

New study, just hogwash?

Environmentalists have criticized the pilot study on grounds that moef will only be repeating what the earlier committee has undertaken. Vimal Bhai head of Matu People’s Organization, an environmental group active in Uttarakhand, said,

“The new study is hogwash. More than a year ago, the National Environment Appellate Authority had told moef to set up a monitoring committee to oversee Loharinag Pala project. The ministry has not done so. When asked it cited lack of staff as the reason. When it could not monitor one project, how can we trust it on this study, which is for the entire stretch? And the construction is not even being stopped. What will they study once the dams are already there.”

An MOEF official, who attended the inter-ministerial meeting, told Down To Earth, that the Uttarakhand government was “playing hide and seek and might restart the projects once the elections are over”.

THE state highway between Viramgam and Surendranagar towns in Gujarat presents a stark contrast. On one side is a carpet of green fields for miles, and on the other, decaying Jowar and cotton crops, at places submerged in water. The 60 km highway itself remained under water for three days in mid-September.

The contrast makes clear the nature of floods in Gujarat. There are no rivers near inundated areas. After Surat floods in 2006, this is the second time that a major flood has happened in the state due to blocking of drainage paths. Most affected areas are in the peninsular Saurashtra region. In two days, September 17-18, it rained as much in Surendranagar district as it rains in a year there. “It rained more than 40 inches in 30 hours, leading to flooding. There was no time for water to recede,” said J D Bhad, collector of Surendranagar.

The damage was heavy. Over a hundred thousand hectares of agricultural land was damaged by water-logging. About two thousand houses have collapsed completely and 13,000 others are partially damaged. Yudhveer Jadhav, an elder member of Adalsar village in Surendranagar, estimates that in his Lakhtar taluka, cotton crops worth Rs 40 crore have been damaged.

Jadhav’s family itself had sown cotton in 4 hectares (ha). “We invested whatever we could in the crop and were waiting for it to grow,” he said. But then came floods. About 70 per cent of the crops and 20 per cent land in Adalsar are ruined. Jadhav has calmly accepted his fate. “It is a natural disaster, one cannot call it the fault of the government,” he said. But he does agree that had it not been for the raised highways and canals of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Project, the damage could have been lesser.

In nearby Limbadi taluka, Kantibhai Bhatana also lost half his crops.

“Two acres (a little less than a hectare) of my land near the road is completely damaged and it will take years before anything grows on it. The sand and rocks that came with water will have to be removed manually and new soil will have to be spread,”

he said. The contrast was visible here as well. The crop in his field across the road, connecting Surendranagar town and Limbadi, was standing tall and healthy. “The rainfall did not affect that side much because the water receded quickly. On this side the water was blocked by the road,” he said.

Survey for compensation would take “some time”, said Bhad.

On the edge of Saurashtra in Little Rann of Kutch, salt workers called Agariyas were stuck in more than seven feet of water. Their newly installed machinery for salt production was submerged.

The Rann is a low-lying area that remains submerged for four months till August. In September the Agariyas migrate to the Little Rann of Kutch to produce salt. “The problem aggravated because there are no raised areas in the Rann where they could take refuge,” said Bharat Patel, who works with Agariya Hitrakshak Manch, an advocacy group for the rights of salt workers. Bodies of five fishermen were found in Little Rann of Kutch, he added. The nearby 42 sq km Nal Sarovar bird sanctuary was also under water.

Obstructive network

The damage due to the Narmada canal network in Saurashtra and to the network itself was huge. A yet-to-be-commissioned pump house in Lakhtar, the second largest in Asia, gave way under high water pressure. The canal breached at three places, aggravating the flood.

The Saurashtra branch canal of the Narmada project—that branches off from the main canal at Kadi in Mehsana district and runs across the Saurashtra region—is designed to hold a flow of about 400 cubic metres per second (cumecs), but the downpour led to a flow of over 600 cumecs. This was one of the reasons for breaches.

Asia’s second largest pump station in Lakhtar, now broken

There were also reports of villagers breaching the high embankment of the canal as water was being held in their village. “This is because at places the ground level is lower than the base of the canal,” said an official of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (ssnl) that manages the entire canal network, on the condition of anonymity.

The topography of the area is like a saucer. The first half of the Saurashtra branch canal is sloping, while the second half is flat, where water has to be pumped to keep it flowing.

“The rainfall happened in 110 sq km of the canal’s tail-end area. As the water was draining towards the slope, its movement was obstructed by the pump house, which can pump water only in one direction (away from the slope), thus it was broken,”

said an ssnl official. According to ssnl officers, more than Rs 50 crore will be required to reconstruct the pump and repair the breaches.

Rain pattern is not the same

Did the designers of the canal err in assessing its required holding capacity? Usually, engineers consider rainfall data of 50 years while deciding the design capacity, but a change in the rainfall pattern in the past few years has spoiled the calculations.

Saurashtra is a drought-prone area but rainfall pattern there is changing. The rainfall in 24 hours on September 19 was 1,123 mm in Lakhtar, almost double the average of total rainfall in a year there, 550 mm, according to the State Disaster Management Authority. The average is based on last 11 years’ data. In 2007, Lakhtar received 836 mm of rainfall. In Limbadi, rainfall in September was 622 mm in 24 hours as against an annual average of 699 mm. “I have seen floods only four-five times. The last big flood was about 35 years ago. But this year’s is the worst,” said octogenarian Megabha Mohan Samatiya of Moti Katechi village in Limbadi. In 2005, Limbadi received 1,245 mm rainfall.

But in recent years people in Surendranagar have suffered small floods almost every monsoon. “The canal breaches every year during monsoon in Halwad and Dhrangadra talukas. We have reported this to the mamlatdar, a block-level officer, several times but there is no action,” said Patel of Agariya Hitrakshak Manch.

Wherever the ground level is below the canal bed level, drainage siphons are created in the canal every one-and-a-half kilometers. But even siphons got submerged. They easily get clogged by silt and logs. “Drainage paths have got obstructed due to the canals which divide the topography into two. Whatever we do, we cannot fully compensate the requirements of nature. People will breach the dam when they see danger to their homes and crops,” admitted the ssnl official.

A study by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences released in August this year shows that about 52 per cent of the command area of the Narmada canal faces very high probability of water-logging and salination, resulting in crop loss. This is even as the supply for irrigation and drinking water has not been fulfilled according to its potential.

Himanshu Upadhyaya of the Delhi-based NGO Environics Trust said rainfall was a “frivolous” excuse for what happened in Saurashtra.

“This cannot be called flooding because none of these areas is near a river basin. The phenomenon of local flooding due to water-logging was evident in 2004. Infrastructure in Gujarat overlooks the gradient of land, be it canals or the highways,”

he said. The Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway had caused similar damage during the 2006 flood.
Farmers like Jadhav, however, continue to believe that floods are God’s will, giving the government a clean chit.

“It is you people who have polluted the river. All the muck that comes down here is from Delhi. Even if 30 crores out of the 400 crores spent on the Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) was properly utilized, Yamuna would have been much cleaner today. Everybody just shouts about cleaning, even in the evening Aarti, they shout about Yamuna Maiya and how it needs to be cleaned but nobody takes a single step,” said Hero Hiralal, summarizing my entire journey “to explore the river” which was the motive we started with.

I was amused at the awareness of this boatman who claimed to haven’t even stepped out of Braj region all his life but not at all surprised for him blaming Delhi for polluting the river. This had been the refrain throughout our eight days’ journey from Delhi to Agra in the villages along the banks of the River.

On June 5, the world Environment day, a group of professionals, farmers, activists and journalists headed off for a bike rally in the villages along the Yamuna. Flagged off from the site of Yamuna Satyagraha, where a group of people has been protesting against construction of Commonwealth Games Village for more than 300 days now, the aim of the rally was to check out the situation in villages downstream of Delhi till Agra.

Almost every village we visited as part of this Yatra- Qutub se Taaj-Ek hi Awaz, Jiye Jamuna, Jiye Jan Jan- accused Delhi for sending down polluted water to their villages. “There was a time when one dropped a coin and it could be seen clearly at the floor of the river. Now, even a human body will not be visible, the water is so dark,” said Sukhbeer Mistry of Kushak village in Haryana. The instance of the coin was another refrain that we heard throughout this journey. But as we saw later in Mathura, a coin diver had to struggle through tones of grime to get a ‘mouthful’ of coins.

Till 30 years ago, Kushak village used to have a three-day fair of Peer Sidh Baba on the banks of the river. “In the month of Baisakh, people of all villages from Hodal to Palwal in Haryana would come to have a dip in the river and sell their wares near her. That used to be the time of water-melons and jalebis. Then the water in the river receded and the pollution went up. Now, the fair has practically died down with nobody wanting a dip in the dirty water,” said Gajraj Bainsla, sarpanch of Kushak.

“Even the mother does not feed the child unless he cries of hunger. Now it seems the time has come to shout to make the government listen to us,” chipped in Bainsla. By now, everytime we left a village, we got used to giving a loud call of “Yamuna mata ki Jai” and that continued throughout the journey, even though now it was more a show of religion and politics than the conservation spirit which we were meant to start with.

The joke of the trip, as we called it, was the condition of sewage treatment plants, all built with the biggest chunk of money under the YAP. In not even one place we visited, the STPs were functional, for whatever reasons. In the first one we visited in Dhadhasiya in Faridabad, the 20 MLD STP that occupies an area of 17 acres only obstructed plastic in the first phase and desilted sewage in the second. No aeration was being done. But even these two functions were shut down for the last one month because the capacity was being enhanced to 65 MLD. Till then, raw sewage will continue to be bypassed into drains which merge with the river. “The water is treated upto 50% when the STP is operational and then discharged into Bhudhiya Nala from where people also draw it for irrigation. I have been into the business of environment much before all this activism came in. But till date, no general public except for the Japenese students once in a while have visited this STP. Who is interested to know where their daily muck is going?” said the contractor of this STP.

The first night halt of the yatra was in a temple of Tigaon village in Faridabad. Heavy rainfall brought with it stench and mosquitoes which were effective enough in keeping everybody up and ready by 4 am in the morning. A little more exploration in the morning light revealed that there was a huge Johad behind the temple that was filled up with garbage and water hyacinth and rainfall meant more stench from the stagnant water. The only source of inspiration throughout the night was the songs of Kishorilal Tanwar, one of the farmers who participated in the Yatra. Kishori’s land on the Yamuna flood plain in Delhi was acquired when Akshardham temple came up. Since then, he has been tilling other’s land. The campaign against the Commonwealth Games village turned this 50-year-old man into a poet, composer and singer. Armed with an earthen pot, Kishori launched a fierce singing battle in all the villages we went, besides inspiring us in mosquito-ridden nights.

The next day took us to Manjhawli village. Dogs and cows crossing the river easily gave testimony to the fact that the river here was no deeper than five feet. The sarpanch of Majhawli village explained very distinctly the relation between social ills and dying agriculture and how the move towards urbanization has completely left the river out of the social phenomenon. A little ahead of Manjhawli in Amirpur village, an embankment over Bhudiya Nala was being constructed. “You would think it’s a project of national importance that they are bunding the land for. 100 acres of land has been bought on the flood plain for making a golf course. And thatswhy the embankment,” said Ram Chandra of Manjhawli, who daughter-in-law is the Sarpanch of the village. In order to calm villagers, SRS Constructions, the company developing the golf course, is making roads in nearby Manjhawali and Akbarpur villages. “People are also happy that the rates of land will go up near the roads and it will be easy for them to sell and leave or use the easy money in drinking. Government is anyway encouraging that by giving easy license for alcohol outlets. Who wants to do farming anyway, there is no incentive in it. Industry has so much overwhelmed us that agriculture has become completely a thankless job. Once farming goes, river will no more be a part of the social structure as it is now,” he said.

“Kastkar ke bina desh ka udhhar nahi hota, vyapari aur bhikhmange ko des se pyar nahi hota,” reminisced Kishori. (no country can prosper without farmers. Businessmen and beggars do not love the country)

A young chap sitting there proposed the solution for cleansing of the river: concretise the flood plain. “If the flood plain is concretized, nothing bad will go into it,” said Shyambir. He was immediately refurbished by another oldman for talking out of his head. “How will your tube-well work if you concretise the Khadar. Where will the ground water come from?” he said.

Given all this, farmers are happy with the river water which as of now acts as a fertilizer. “When we use this water, we need to put in fewer fertilizers, but when we use the borewell water, we need much more fertilizer. This is because this water comes from the industries,” said Satwant Kumar of Beduki village on Haryana-UP border. “People spend lakhs and take pipelines from here to Hodal which is ten kilometers away. We grow everything in it but for vegetables because they perish very soon if we use this water. We know that our land might be destroyed in the long-run, but who will wait till then. We will sell our land to industries and go like people in Delhi are doing now,” said his friend Mange Ram. At Beduki Nala we also saw a dead cow floating and another skeleton lying on the bank.

Till now, the only beings who treated the river close to their heart were children who dived into it with gay abandon, cows that bathed and dogs that relaxed in the cold water. It was overwhelming to see their association with the river, despite the smelly water, diseases and allergies apart. The next day embarked our entry into the religious sphere of the journey. Having entered Uttar Pradesh, now it was the land of Krishna that we were traversing. An ISCON follower who participated in the Yatra removed his footwear here for the rest of the journey. “It is only agriculture that can solve all problems of unemployment and social evils” he declared.

It was already June 8 and we were very close to Ganga Dushehra, the day when lakhs of devotees in these parts go to the river to take a dip. So the religious fervour associated with the river was already at the hightened pitch, but only in few places did it transform into cleaning of the river, like in Mathura, where a river-cleaning drive was already underway at Vishram Ghat.

Master Nain singh, whom we met on the highway near Chata, said that people come to Braj for an 84-mile ‘Parikrama’ but now one would find dead animals on the Parikrama route along the river. Standing on the pontoon bridge of Shergarh was a different feeling from all previous days’ experience near the river. For the first time, the river did not stink, what else could one ask for. People considered it the benevolence of Krishna that the water quality here, as tested by experts accompanying us, was also better than any other hand-pump that they tested on the way. “The river has the capacity of self-cleansing and rejuvenation. From Faridabad till here, there is no major town, so very little sewage has been thrown into the river, which is the reason for it becoming clean again,” said Manoj Mishra, who led our team.

The next destination was Ova village, popularly known as Dauji’s village as Krishna’s elder brother Balram is said to have stretched the river till here from Barsana. For this small stretch, the river water quality just bettered with each passing village, as our water testing team suggested. But this was to last only till Vrindavan where we halted for the night. Jaisingh Ghera, the earstwhile Haveli of Maharaja Jai Singh of Jaipur, was no less than luxury after suffering mosquitoes all this while. In Mat, a little before Vrindavan, though 150 cusecs of water is especially released from Gang Nahar into the Yamuna, Kosi Nala also joins the river here. The difference between the water before and after the point where Kosi Nala joins it, is stark even on the look of it. There are hardly any devotees taking a dip on the left bank near the ghats as the garbage from Kosi Nala flows on this side.

Robyn Beeche, an Australian whom we met here, conducted a cycle rally from Yamunotri to Vrindavan in 1996. “There was a Buddhist monk with us who carried seeds in his pockets and kept spreading them as we went down. The morning prayer in schools of villages here invoked the river and we saw how they wrap the river in long sarees on her birthday in May. All this was enthralling,” she recalled her experiences.

And she had the other side too. Beeche, who came to Vrindavan in 1984, shows photographs of how plastic waste is entrenched in the river bed in Vrindavan. “The river has been pushed away from the Ghats by more than 500 metres due to silting, dumping of garbage and debris. The aquifers near the river have died due to this,” she said.

“The thick concrete layer of sand and plastic under water also does not let it penetrate down. The water level has gone down from 30-40 feet eight years ago to below 150 feet now. Earlier, water used to cut the silt, but less flow in the river has prevented that also now. At the same time, most of the funds given by MoEF are for awareness. Somebody please tell them that there is already enough awareness but people do not have options. A common man knows that garbage should not be thrown in the river but what are his options, similarly, what should be done about flush toilets in cities? said Neeraj Saigal of Food for Life Vrindavan, a local NGO.

The Mahant of Jaisingh Ghera, Shrivatsa Goswami, threw a different light on the issue. “You will hardly find any Ashrams in Vrindavan that still use Yamuna water for all their activities. Even here, we do bring Yamuna Jal, but use it only ceremoniously, not for all our activities because we know it is polluted. We treat it as polluted but still sing praises of the river, isn’t it paradoxical?” he said.

Goswami tells about instances how the road was build in flood plain as the access to the Ashram of a prominent Dharam Guru was bad and how a 400 crore project of Ring road is being planned around Vrindavan which would involve erecting pillars of the river bed in an attempt to make it a tourist destination.

“A river is the image of society. If it is polluted, the society is polluted. River is dying in urban areas as it has no role to play in urban lifestyle like it has in rural activities like agriculture, bathing, etc. If religion can be used for all corrupt purposes, why can’t it be used for positive results. 95% of the population in our country and all politicians are ruled by religion, so if the attention of religious gurus is turned towards the cause, it is bound to make an impact,” said Goswami.

In Mathura, damming of the river was the main issue. The problem of less current due to Gokul Barrage in Mathura has led to even wells along the ghat drying up. “The barrage was mean to increase water level in Mathura and Agra, but it has just gone down. All sewerage is stopped at the barrage, turning the borewell water yellow and stinky. This is due to huge amount of silt in the river. We protested against the barrage from day-1 and still it came up. The results are there for all to see,” said Gopeshwarnath Chaturvedi of Shrikrishan Janmasthan Sewa Sansthan, Mathura. As Chaturvedi talked, his men cleared the muck from the river outside for the approaching Ganga Dushehra. “When textile shops mushroomed suddenly in every nook and corner of Mathura, the colour of the river water temporarily became the colour of dye used, it is not that much now,” said Chaterjee.

“Nadi ki aviral dhara ko rokne se nadi khatam ho jayegi. 150 cusecs are released to the river from Ganga at Mat before Vrindavan, 120 cusecs is released at Okhla barrage, there is plan to get 100 cusecs more, but now even Tehri dam is running dry, where will we get more from,” he said.

As we moved towards Agra, the short respite of stench-free clean river got over. Though we were welcomed by local activists with great fervour who led us into the town surrounded by a procession, river conservation as a motive was lost somewhere along the way. Everything drinkable served to us in the next two days was in plastic glasses, which sadly were thrown on the river bed in front of our eyes, as did the used dry leave plates and plastic bowls in which we ate. Despite the guilt factor, nothing much could be done by the guests as we had to appreciate the hospitality. The journey which had taken a very religious turn from Shergarh onwards now went into the politics of an urbanized town.

And the image of the city, as Goswami said, showed on the river too. Mantola nala, the drain that passed through the world heritage corridor between the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, presented the ugliest sight of the trip as it fell into the river. Having eked out time in between public meetings and Sabhas organised in welcome of the “team from Delhi” and several of speeches by local leaders and garlanding events, we went to see Mantola nala. Unfortunately or fortunately, we went in the morning, the time when it turned out that the nala is the dirtiest with city dwellers cleaning themselves. The foam was accompanied by waste from leather factories which turned various hues. And we were there at a time, when the sewage from the Nala had just started going back to the STP after a gap of 15 days. Reason: the iron mesh from where the sewage is diverted to the pumping station was broken due to excess rust. “If we keep diverting the sewage when the mesh is broken, it will lead to blockage of the pumping station with plastics, so the gates of the nala towards the river were opened,” said Deepchand, a sanitation worker at the point in Ramlila ground of Agra where the water is diverted to the Dhandhupura STP. Local news reports show that it is not a once in a while phenomenon. The gates are opened every once in a while. “This is due to old and worn out pumping stations and STPs which do not work half the time or there is no electricity,” said Ravi Singh, environmentalist.

Officially 78 MLD water is discharged into Mantola nala everyday, though unofficial estimates show more than 100 MLD. And all this sewage is discharged into the river in blatant violation of the Supreme Court order as well as the Water Act. Meanwhile, the city administration is contemplating getting drinking water supply from the Ganga via a 130 km long pipeline as the city has no other drinking water supply except for the Yamuna as of now. There goes the YAP!!

Near the school where we stayed on the Ghat of Yamuna in Agra, there was another sewage pumping station, which looked more like an abandoned well till one morning when I saw somebody cleaning the premises from the school building. I rushed down to talk to him and found that Rajwaha sewage pumping station has been out of order for some days now. No new story this time too!!

“Historians in the city tell us that Taj was built right on the edge of the river. People would get down from their boats and into the Taj Mahal. Will you ever believe that as you see the Taj at a distant height from the river now,” said Ravi.

From Delhi to Agra, its about 300 kilometres of the river as it meanders and it goes 400 kilometres more from here before finally merging in the Sangam, how it even flows after this is a big question. Perhaps, that’s the divinity attached to it, that it is just flowing, either as a sewer or the river, that’s for individuals to decide.

	Hydroelectric projects in Alaknanda and Bhagirathi river basins

While going up the meandering road from Tehri to the holy town Gangotri during the thick of monsoon, the Bhagirathi appeared to get uneasily quieter with each hairpin bend; until Chinyali Sor village near Dharasu, 45 km from new Tehri town. The Tehri reservoir ends in the village. The river thereafter springs back to life and the roar of the gushing waters fills up the valleys. But the landscape gradually changes. Some of the mountains are bare and dotted along the road, every 500 metres, are graffiti, posters and signboards, giving out ominous messages. “Blasting Site” in bold, “Bandh Ganga ki hatya hai” (dams will kill the Ganga) and “Ganga ko aviral behne do” (let the Ganga flow unobstructed) are most common along this main stretch of pilgrim route where devotees go to pay their respects to Goddess Ganga, believed to be the daughter of heaven who came down on Earth through the matter locks of lord Shiva.

That apart, the river is fast becoming a favourite destination for hydroelectric projects, several of which are coming up on the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda basins (see map), tributaries of the Ganga river. The highest of them, Bhairon Ghati, is 27 km from the Gangotri glacier. The Uttarakhand government claims it needs the projects. “We do not have many resources except the rivers. Power from these rivers is the only source of revenue for the state. Besides, we can also control floods and have water for irrigation round the year,” said Yogendra Prasad, chairperson of Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (ujvnl) and adviser to the chief minister. Fifty five hydropower projects are in different phases of construction and planning. The 162 km stretch of the river from Gangotri to Devprayag will have 11 big dams while the 145 km stretch of Alaknanda from Badrinath to Devprayag will have more than nine big dams apart from several other small projects.

But things came to a head in June this year when G D Agarwal, former member secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board, sat on a nine-day fast. His demand was that no hydropower projects should come up on the 125-km stretch between Uttarkashi and Gangotri. He contended that it would affect the flow of the river and impact its purity. “Run of the river dams are the ones where water will be stored and released periodically through tunnels at locations on which the powerhouse will be built. If this goes on in a series, over long stretches there will be no flow in the channel,” says Agarwal. Following the protest, the state stalled two projects, Pala Maneri and Bhairon Ghati. The Union Ministry of Power has set up a committee to look into the questions raised by Agarwal. In response, B C Khanduri, chief minister of Uttarakhand, is reported to have said that “the state respects Agarwal’s sentiments and that he should also understand the state’s energy requirements”.

According to Anupam Mishra, environmentalist with Gandhi Peace Foundation,

“Engineers feel that a river meeting into the sea without being of use for irrigation or power is a waste of the water in it. If we disrupt the natural flow of a river, it can create havoc. Merging into the river prevents large quantity of saline water ingress. This is crucial but is considered unscientific. Also, they cannot predict that a strong earthquake won’t happen in the Himalaya. How will they save the downsteam areas from flooding if the dam breaks?”

Experts also say that the ecology of the area will be adversely impacted, the qualities that make the Ganga what it is will be gone and the river may dry up.

The roaring of motorcycles shattered the early morning calm on the Yamuna floodplains in Delhi. On World Environment Day on June 5, a group of professionals, farmers, activists and journalists gathered for a bike rally along the river at the Yamuna Satyagraha site, where a bunch of farmers and activists have been campaigning against the construction of the Commonwealth Games Village on the riverbed for over 300 days.

As the river drifted into Faridabad its burden of sewage and industrial waste kept on increasing and the spectacular failure of the Yamuna Action Plan began to unfold. In Dhadhasiya, 40 km from Delhi, a sewage treatment plant (stp) of 20 million litre per day capacity sprawled over 7 hectares made a great showpiece of the plan, but it was shut down for upgradation. Untreated sewage was being discharged into the river. “Who is interested in knowing where their daily muck is going?” said the stp contractor with a shrug. Even when the plant functions, it treats the sewage only partially. In not even one place we visited, stps were functional.

“It is you people who have polluted the Yamuna. All the muck that comes down here is from Delhi. Everybody just shouts about cleaning it; in the evening aarti they chant prayers of Yamuna Maiya, but nobody takes a single step.” —HERO HIRALAL a boatman in Vrindavan

On the first night of the journey we slept in a temple of Tigaon village, 3 km from the river, in Faridabad. Heavy rainfall brought with it stench and mosquitoes which were effective in keeping everybody up and ready by 4 in the morning. The only source of inspiration throughout the night was the songs of fellow traveller Kishorilal Tomar. His land on the Yamuna floodplain in Delhi was acquired when Akshardham temple came up. Since then he has been tilling others’ land. The campaign against the Games Village turned this 50-year-old farmer into a poet, composer and singer. Armed with an earthen pot, Kishorilal would fling himself into high-pitched singing in all the villages we went to.

The next day took us to Manjhawli village in Ballabgarh. Dogs and cows easily crossing the river gave away its shallowness. A little ahead an embankment over Bhudiya Nala was being constructed. “You would think it’s a project of national importance. Actually, 40 hectares have been bought on the floodplain for making a golf course, hence the embankment,” said Ram Chandra of Manjhawli. To keep the villagers quiet, SRS Constructions, the company developing the golf course, was making roads in Manjhawli and nearby Akbarpur. “People are happy that the rates of land will go up and they will sell and leave. Who wants to do farming anyway? Once farming goes, the river will no more be a part of the social structure,” he said.

A cow’s body floated in Beduki Nala, 30 km from Manjhawli, and on the bank lied a skeleton. Some farmers have discovered benefits in using the polluted water. “When we use this water, we need less fertilizers because it comes from industries,” said Satwant Kumar of Beduki village on the Haryana-Uttar Pradesh border.

The river is indeed getting estranged from society. Until 30 years ago, Kushak village in Haryana used to have a three-day fair of Peer Sidh Baba on its banks. “In the month of Baisakh, people from all over Haryana would come here to have a dip in the river and sell their wares near her. That used to be the time of water melons and jalebis. Then the water in the river receded and the pollution went up. Now the fair has practically died down, with nobody wanting a dip in the dirty water,” said Gajraj Bainsla, sarpanch of Kushak.

Village after village accused Delhi of polluting the water. “There was a time when one dropped a coin and it could be seen on the floor of the river. Now even a human body will not be visible. All because of Delhi, which takes away all the river water for drinking and releases this dark, stinking filth for us,” said Sukhbeer Mistry of Kushak. Later in Mathura we saw a coin diver struggling with grime to get a mouthful of coins—under water, coin divers find it convenient to collect coins in the mouth.

As the villagers collected around us, our leader and convenor of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, Manoj Mishra, exhorted, “It is you all, the people of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, who have to tell Delhi to stop polluting, else you will not give them any water from upstream.”
The next day our journey entered into the religious sphere. Now we were traversing the land of Krishna. An iskcon follower among us removed his footwear for the rest of the journey. It was June 8 and we were very close to Ganga Dushehra, the day when millions of devotees take a dip in the holy river. The religious fervour was at a heightened pitch, but only at few places did it transform into cleaning of the river, like at Vishram Ghat in Mathura.

From the pontoon bridge of Shergarh in the Braj region the Yamuna presented a different sight—and smell. For the first time during the journey, it did not stink. People considered it the benevolence of Krishna. Mishra said it was the river’s self-cleansing capacity. “From Faridabad till here, there is no major town, so very little sewage has been thrown into the river,” he said. The river rejuvenated with each passing village till Vrindavan, where we halted for the night. A little before Vrindavan, 50 cusecs of water from Ganga Nahar is released into the Yamuna to improve its water quality. But at Vrindavan Kosi Nala pours its muck and garbage into it.

In the morning we took a boat ride around the ghats, most of which were 500 metres from the river, divided from it by a sand beach and a concrete road.

“It is you people who have polluted the river. All the muck that comes down here is from Delhi. Even if Rs 30 crore of the Rs 400 crore spent on the Yamuna Action Plan were utilized, the Yamuna would have been much cleaner. Everybody just shouts about cleaning it; in the evening aarti, they chant prayers of Yamuna Maiya, but nobody takes a single step,”

said our boatman Hero Hiralal, who claims never to have stepped out of Braj, summarizing my entire journey. We heard this lament often during the journey.

The Yamuna was choking on silt, garbage and debris. “The thick layer of sand and plastic under water does not let it penetrate underground. The groundwater level has gone down from 30-40 feet eight years ago to below 150 feet. Most of the environment ministry funds are for awareness. What should be the next step after awareness?” asked Neeraj Saigal of ngo Food for Life, Vrindavan. Shrivatsa Goswami, the Mahant of Jaisingh Ghera, the erstwhile haveli of Maharaja Jai Singh of Jaipur in Vrindavan, told us how a road was built on the flood plain to the ashram of a prominent priest and how a ring road is being planned around Vrindavan, which will involve erecting pillars on the riverbed. “A river is the image of society. If it is polluted, the society is polluted. If religion can be used for corrupt purposes, why can’t it be used for the cause of the river?” asked Goswami.

By the time it reached Mathura, the Yamuna looked feeble and tired. Gokul Barrage considerably reduced its current. Even the wells along the ghats had dried up. “The barrage was meant to improve water level in Mathura and Agra, but the level has plunged because of silt in the river,” said Gopeshwarnath Chaturvedi of Shrikrishan Janmasthan Sewa Sansthan, Mathura.

As we approached Agra, the short respite from stench was over. And the image of the city, as Goswami said, reflected in the river. Mantola Nala, the drain that passed through the heritage corridor between the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, presented the ugliest sight of the trip as it fell into the river. The foam was accompanied by waste from leather factories. And this when the sewage from the nala had just started going back to the stp after 15 days.
In violation of the Supreme Court order and the Water Act, sewage is often diverted into the river “due to old and worn out pumping stations and stps which do not work half the time”, said Ravi Singh, an environmentalist. The city administration is now contemplating bringing drinking water to the city from the Ganga through a 130 km pipeline. There goes the Yamuna Action Plan.

Though activists led us into the city in a procession, river conservation as a motive was lost somewhere along the way. During the next two days water and beverages were served to us in plastic glasses, which were thrown away on the riverbed, as were the used dry-leaf plates and plastic bowls. There was more talk and noise. Sabhas were organized to welcome the “team from Delhi” and hundreds of leaders and politicians launched into speeches. The journey, which had taken a religious turn from Shergarh, now went into the politics of an urbanized town. The wheel had turned a full circle.

The boatman’s words came back to my mind as I looked at the river, black with filth and reduced to a trickle. How it covers the rest of its journey before finally merging into the Ganga at Sangam is difficult to comprehend. Perhaps it is the divinity attached to it.