Why Yamuna Is Now Brownish Narrow Stream

New Delhi: The Yamuna has narrowed into a thin brownish stream at the point where it flows from Haryana into Delhi. The trickle, flanked by exposed sandbanks and stretches of dry riverbed, has made it a cakewalk for people to cross the river from villages in Delhi and Haryana to those in Uttar Pradesh on foot.For villagers living along its banks in this stretch, parts of the river turning into pools of shallow, stagnant water is an annual sight.On Wednesday, TOI visited north Delhi’s Palla village from where the Yamuna enters the city, and saw children — knee-deep in water — using a narrow channel to walk from villages of one state to another. Bullock carts carrying agricultural produce were trundling along this riverine route from Palla and Haryana’s Dahisara village to UP’s Sankroud.The Yamuna shrinks considerably between late winter and early summer, resulting in a perennial river turning into a virtually seasonal one in its upper and middle segments, including Delhi. “Every year, it is reduced to a thin channel around this time of the year. Haryana’s drain number eight releases water into the river only during monsoon. With limited amount of water released into it from Haryana in summer, Yamuna no longer resembles a river,” said Rajpal Singh (71), a retired beldar from Delhi’s irrigation and flood control department.

According to an official mandate, Haryana’s Hathnikund Barrage has been releasing just 9.9 cumecs (352 cusecs) into the Yamuna. “However, this is too little and cannot meet the ecological needs of the river. Also, this water can travel barely 10 kilometres downstream in summer through the vast stretches of the floodplains, factoring in percolation and evaporation,” said Bhim Singh Rawat, a Yamuna activist and associate coordinator of South Asia Network on Dams Rivers and People.

A study by the National Institute of Hydrology in 2019 recommended a flow of 23 cumecs in the lean season, he added.The total length of Yamuna flowing through Delhi is around 52 km, of which 22 km is extremely polluted.“Natural depressions and pits have formed upstream of bridges, creating a false impression of the water level being satisfactory. Yamuna no longer resembles a river in the summer season as it is deprived of sufficient water level round the year, barring monsoon,” said Rawat, adding that all its basin states have spent crores in cleaning it without any tangible results, but have ignored the issue of ensuring its ecological flow, particularly during the lean season.Manu Bhatnagar, principal director of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), said the condition of the river is dire this year. “During the lean season, it receives water from melting snow in Himalayas and from groundwater seepage. However, snowfall was on the lower side this winter. Also, the ongoing heatwave is causing evaporation losses, making the situation worse than usual.”Pointing at the brownish water of the river at Palla, Singh recalled that around 30 years ago, he used to frequently check the water level there and found plenty of fish.

“However, I haven’t seen a single fish in this stretch for years now. Even two decades ago, Yamuna’s water was largely clean. However, it is so dirty now that I can’t see anything. The river has been dying slowly,” said Singh, a resident of Bakhtawarpur village.No response was received from Delhi govt regarding the Yamuna turning into a brownish trickle.A recent check of the river’s water quality revealed that out of eight locations from where samples were collected on April 7, it was found to be least polluted at Palla.

However, Delhi’s last monitoring station at Asgarpur (after the confluence of Shahdara and Tughlakabad drains) was most polluted. Dissolved oxygen, the level of which should be 5 mg/l or above in the river, met the standard only at Palla (5.2 mg/l), but was nil at six other sites.

Dissolved oxygen indicates the chances of aquatic life surviving in a river.Fecal coliform, an indicator of untreated sewage in the river, was recorded at 2,800 MPN/100 ML at Palla but rose to 3,10,000 at Asgarpur.

The safe limit is 2,500, and the desired level is below 500.The shrinking and dirty river has impacted the lives of those dependent on it. “We grew up drinking Yamuna’s water but it is impossible to do so now. In summer, we used to take a bath in the river for hours to beat the heat. But we have discontinued the practice for several years because of its polluted water,” said Vinod Kumar, a farmer.The picture drastically changes during monsoons. While the water level at Delhi’s Old Railway Bridge was at 200.9 metres at 1 pm on Wednesday, it touched 207.4 m last Sept — the third-highest recorded in the city. Recalling last year’s floods, Devendra Singh of Palla village said his field in which he sowed ridge gourd and paddy was destroyed after river water entered it.