After observing the government's efforts to clean river Yamuna for over two decades, the Supreme Court decided on Monday to assign the task of cleaning the river to the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
The apex court had taken cognizance on its own in 1994 on a report on pollution in river Yamuna in Delhi and since then it has been overseeing the steps taken by Centre, UP, NCT government and Haryana to clean the river. It had referred the case on Ganga pollution to NGT in January after monitoring Centre's effort to clean the holy river for over three decades.
“ The governments must make a joint effort to stop discharge of industrial and domestic waste into the river directly. It is sad that everyone is shifting responsibility,” the court said.
A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud decided that implementation of various projects to clean the river should be monitored by the green tribunal and referred the matter to NGT. The bench expressed concern over the growing pollution level in Yamuna despite its efforts of the last 23 years and spending over Rs 4,000 crore by various governments to clean the river.
“ Unfortunately, a huge amount has been spent without achieving any perceptible change in the water quality,” the apex court had said.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who is assisting the court since 1994, told the bench that the task of cleaning had become difficult as the amount of untreated sewage flowing into Yamuna had grown exponentially over the years which was at present 1500-1600 million gallons per day.
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