Officials at the Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) office announced on April (05) plans to increase efforts to clean the Yamuna through awareness campaigns, including enlisting the help of priests to discourage people from throwing waste from religious ceremonies into the river.
The aim is to involve priests from major temples and those located along the banks of the Yamuna to persuade people not to dispose of items like clothes, old idols, calendars, posters, and flowers in the river, an official said.
The Delhi LG's office has announced plans to launch extensive awareness campaigns to encourage public participation in the rejuvenation efforts of the river. These campaigns will leverage various media platforms to generate information, education, and communication (IEC) about the importance of keeping the Yamuna clean.
As part of this initiative, the priests will be involved and sensitised to discourage people from throwing waste generated during religious ceremonies into the river. The office also stated that recent efforts towards cleaning and rejuvenating the Yamuna by Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena have shown visible and concrete results.
"Even as critical steps to clean the Najafgarh Drain and restore the Yamuna floodplains have been going on in the right earnest, efforts at preventing disposal of physical waste into the river have started bearing results," a statement from the LG office said.
Personnel of the Territorial Army prevented waste from religious ceremonies being thrown into the Yamuna River and collected it for eco-friendly disposal. They also stopped washing of packaging material in the Najafgarh drain and the owner was fined by the Irrigation and Flood Control department.
A high-level committee, headed by the LG and formed under the National Green Tribunal, has taken various macro and micro-level measures which have led to improved pollution levels in the Yamuna where the Najafgarh drain meets the river.
These measures include trapping of sub-drains, restoration of floodplains, and other initiatives for rejuvenation of the river and its floodplain, the statement said.
With inputs from PTI
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