Death of A River Dialogue
Dear Misraji:
I hardly get any time during the week after 3+ hours of commute and high workload. But I devote whatever time I can scrounge during the weekend and late nights to help with the Yamuna and other Rivers of the World Efforts. I am really thrilled to hear about your HNZ bridge awareness work beginning Sep 1.
I have talked to Mr. Dick Lahn, Pres. Obama's effective campaign man in Pittsburgh, PA, who is a deeply dedicated team member and proponent of the Yamuna cleanup effort by the Rivers of the world Foundation. Dick really liked your plan and mentioned that you can possibly have some kind of indicator on the bridge to gage people's support for the Yamuna. I suggest that you should place a Hanging Puja-Bell at each end of the two Sidewalks with a sign " If you love the Yamuna and Want to Portect it - "Ghonta Bajao" or Ring the Bell". This will bring a lot of solidarity and support for the Yamuna cleanup effort.
Being so far I couldn't do much except provide you with our strong support for the cause. However, one other issue that occurred to me after talking to Mr. D.K. Mital in Mayur Vihar this morning, who mentioned about the serious traffic congestion in Delhi. In whatever way you conduct your activities on the Bridge, please ensure that your activities do not add to the traffic problem, else this great effort may get some undue back lashes from the already burnt up and frustrated drivers.
Dick Lahn, and Myself are planning to Come to Delhi in January 2010 and will be in touch with you about a few Field Workshops on Yamuna that we plan to conduct.
Meantime, I have placed a link to your Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan in the Rivers of the World (ROW) Foundation website. Please see http://rowfoundation.org/row/
I have been providing the DJB (formerly DWSSD) with the design of a number of Low-cost and very practical wastewater treatment systems, which could capture the drainage from Barapullah, and other Drains prior to the their massive loading of contaminated water into the Yamuna River. DJB showed excitement and many other supportive gestures only to get the proposals from me and then sit tight on those and later try to go around and use that through their local contractors. I find that highly unethical and illegal as well. I have full documentation of these facts Their interceptor drains design is one of our concept and design that I have submitted to them in 2004. My objective is to get the Yamuna cleaned one way or another, doesn't matter if they take the idea and can implement themselves or hire the Hanuman to put the Lanka ablaze.
Subijoy.
Subijoy Dutta, P.E., Technical Adviser
Rivers of the World Foundation
1496 Harwell Avenue,
Crofton, MD 21114
www.rowfoundation.org
Rivers of the World Foundation
1496 Harwell Avenue,
Crofton, MD 21114
www.rowfoundation.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Yamuna Jiye AbhiyaanSent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:20 AMDear Sir/s,
Thanks.
Incidentally, we are launching an outreach and awareness initiative for the river Yamuna beginning September 1, 2009 for a month at the HNZ Bridge (NH 24). The purpose of the initiative is to sensitize the people using the bridge (several thousands pass over it every day) to :
a) Not use the bridge to dump their waste (including religious left overs) into the river and further pollute it.
b) Seek the indulgence of the state to demand 'environmental flow' back into the river
c) Tell the state to not build on the flood plain
School children, staff and supporters of NGOs and local youth groups and farmers, pujaris etc have been requested to act as volunteers on two shifts (9-12 noon and 2 -5 pm) each day. Banners, placards, caps, leaflets etc shall be used to reach out to users of the bridge.
So, in case Dr Dutta finds synergy in this worthwhile, then we can discuss the modalities for the same.
Best wishes and regards,
Manoj Misra
Convenor
On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 2:42 AM, <raj2468@comcast.net> wrote:Dear Mr. Misra:
We will look into how Rivers of the World Foundation in Maryland (www.rowfoundation.org) can work with your organization for Yamuna.
Subijoy, look into this and let us discuss. Awareness campaigns with Misra's organization is a thing we can initiate immediately.
Raj
----- Original Message -----
From: "Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan" <yamunajiye@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 1:50:15 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Dear Dr Jain,
Thank you very much for your mail and for referring us to Dr Dutta and other friends.
Campaign to safeguard the flood plains of river Yamuna with an aim to seek ultimately the revival of the river remains an ongoing effort. (To learn more of the same please refer to Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, on our website www.peaceinst.org.)
Yes, it is a fact that the Supreme Court (the once hallowed institution in the country) has played a fraud on the nation's unsuspecting citizenry and its helpless rivers through its blatantly flawed and biased judgment (we have full facts to support such a charge) in the Yamuna case. But the road does not end here. We remain undaunted and fully committed to keep the campaign on both inside and outside the Courts.
It would certainly be great to join hands with as many like minded persons as possible in the matter.
Warm regards,
Manoj MisraOn Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Mohan Jain <mohanjain@comcast.net> wrote:Dear Mr. Misra,You may recall that we had you as speaker at the IDCA conference in 2008 in New Delhi, where you spoke about the proposed Yamuna construction plans and your opposition to it on some solid arguments. We thought the matter will be resolved amicably by the courts..We are very concerned with the situation and like to learn more about it from you. I am forwarding the following emails for your information and comments. Dr. Subijoy Dutta is very passionate about clean up and survival of yamuna for many years. I would like you both connect and work together as best as possible in this critical hour.Only yesterday I read the big speech from our PM about need to fix the environmental problems.Regards,Mohan L. Jain,Thanks, Mohanji for the information. It is a colossal disregard for the lifeline of the people who live on the bank of Yamuna and support themselves with seasonal gardening and production of vegetables from that fertile floodplain. I have gone there, visited them, and talked to these people. Their faces and toiling work in these hard-to-access areas just flashed in my memory. These thoughts and flashes flows through my mind as a burning arrow which makes the determination stronger and steadier to continue this Yamuna cleanup effort. This message is more like the one from the Garuda who lost the battle with the Supreme Court. Just like the Garuda's message didn't go in vain, rather it provided the path and direction, hope this message will act similarly for the doers.Regards,Subijoy----- Original Message -----From: Arjun
Death of a River
Anuradha Dutt
After Supreme Court ruling, little hope left for Yamuna
The recent Supreme Court judgement rejecting the plea that construction of the Commonwealth Games Village on the Yamuna bed posed an environmental threat, has been greeted with dismay by activists, struggling hard for many years to revive the historic river and protect its environs.
Magsaysay Award winner Rajinder Singh, among those who tried unsuccessfully to stymie concretisation of part of the riverbed and flood plains via court intervention, was quoted by the media as having said that the ruling would allow “Governments to change land use policy on rivers”. He is also reported to have observed that “anything that is not in favour of people and is against rivers and the environment cannot be a court ruling”. Aggrieved petitioners find the apex court ruling that the games village is not located on the riverbed and floodplains as flawed. Prof Vikram Soni of the National Physical Laboratory explains that “after 20 million years of flooding, that area today has 40 metres of sandbank”. It is conclusive proof of the games site being a floodplain.
They also object to the court’s dismissal of their plea on the ground that they took legal recourse after “inordinate delay”, without reasonable explanation. Their defence is that they first wrote missives to the city’s administrators — Chief Minister and other senior functionaries authorised to take decisions in this regard — before being forced by their indifference to move the Delhi High Court in September 2007. After the court passed an order to appoint an expert committee to review the construction, Government counsels approached the apex court for relief. Its verdict, allowing the games village to be constructed in the river environs and nullifying the High Court direction to set up an expert committee to monitor the work, may serve as an impetus to speedy completion of the project.
But pro-river campaigners have resolved to press for review of the verdict, and if even that fails to rectify what they see as a wrong, try other legal remedies. They will not give up the battle to save the city’s lifeline, now on the verge of extinction. Melting of the Himalayan glaciers which feed the Yamuna, Ganga and other water systems nourishing the northern plains on account of global warming, is just one of the factors threatening their survival. Others are also man-made, and calculatedly so. For, not only have these rivers become dumps due to human waste and toxic industrial effluents that choke their flow but their environs have turned out to be prospective real estate.
While the games village is cited by opponents as one such venture, the hare-brained scheme to develop a concrete waterfront along the Yamuna as it passes through Delhi is seen to be another. The Thames experiment in London is said to be the inspiration for the plan. However, experts point out that if implemented, Delhi would become vulnerable to massive flooding, since unlike the Thames the Yamuna swells through heavy seasonal rainfall. Accumulated water would break through embankments to flood nearby colonies.
The need of the hour is to save and conserve the rivers, not commercialise their environs. It is a measure of Government ineptitude that all well-intentioned efforts, such as the action plans to revive the Yamuna and Ganga, have been defeated by counter-impulses to build on the beds and floodplains. Thousands of crores of rupees assigned for these projects seem to have disappeared into a bottomless dark hole, with nothing to show for the massive investment. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has gone so far as to admit that it would not be possible to clean up the Yamuna by next October, when the games are slated to take place. Cynics point out that the river may never be cleaned up as it may die before that, given the quantum of waste injected into its waters as well as concrete encroachments on its recharge area.
Considering that the capital is sustained by the Yamuna, the administrative disregard for the imperatives of reviving the river is criminal. Do the city planners have an option to it? None at all, with the Ganga too polluted and indiscriminate damming on its upper reaches. Satellite pictures of the Himalayas show the river’s flow to have disappeared across long stretches. Thankfully, the Allahabad High Court has put on hold the Uttar Pradesh Government’s 1,047 km-long Ganga Expressway project, linking Noida to Ballia, and passing through 19 districts along the banks of the river. Petitioners have objected to the effluents that are proposed to be discharged into the river by factories that will come up parallel to the expressway.. One can only hope that it is not a temporary reprieve.
