The faecal coliform count, which indicates the presence of disease causing micro-organisms, is nearly 25,000 times more than the limit prescribed for bathing.

This was revealed at a public meeting organised by the New Delhi-based research and advocacy organisation Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) here today. CSE released its latest publication Sewage Canal: How to Clean the Yamuna at this public meeting. Chairperson of the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), Bhure Lal and Commissioner of Agra, Sita Ram Meena, were present on the occasion.

CSE also screened a 32-minute video on the subject, Faecal Attraction: Political Economy of Defecation. The book and the film expose the political economy of defecation, where the rich are subsidised to defecate in convenience and the poor pay for pollution with their ill health because of dirty water.

At the receiving end…

Agra and Mathura have been at the receiving end of the pollution from Delhi. The Yamuna’s 22-km stretch in Delhi is barely 2 per cent of the length of the river, but contributes over 70 per cent of the pollution load,” said S V Suresh Babu, deputy coordinator, river pollution campaign, CSE.

In Delhi, the river has virtually no freshwater for nine months. Delhi impounds all its water at Wazirabad, where the dammed up river practically ceases to exist; what flows subsequently is only sewage and waste from Delhi’s 22 drains. There is just no water available to dilute this waste.

Pollution levels in the Yamuna have risen. BOD load has increased 2.5 times between 1980 and 2005 – from 117 tonne per day (tpd) in 1980 to 276 tpd in 2005. Dissolved oxygen (DO) – to check if the river is alive – in the upper segments, considered pristine, is dipping, indicating an increase in organic pollution. By the time the river is midway through Delhi, the total coliform count is so high that it is difficult to count the zeroes. Pesticides and heavy metals are also present in the river. In fact, the river does not meet minimum standards for bathing even after treatment.

Delhi discharges about 3,684 mld of sewage into Yamuna with biochemical oxygen demand, which indicates extent of organic pollution in wastewater, reaching almost 23 milligramme per litre (mg/l) at Majhawali, upstream of Mathura.

At Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board’s monitoring station at Hansa Ranighat upstream of Mathura, the BOD levels were 21.6 mg/l during January 2005. At the water intake point of Agra, the Agra Jal Sansthan says the dissolved oxygen levels touch zero several times.

At the giving end…

However, both Agra and Mathura, also contribute to the pollution in the river, their source of water.

Mathura’s sewerage system dates back to 1923. Though most of the investment done under YAP in Mathura was on sewerage, around Rs 26.62 crore, the drains are in a bad state. They are silted up and incapable of transporting even dry weather flow. Though Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee says that all the 19 major and minor drains in the city were tapped under YAP, experts say that the Dhruvaghat nala with a flow of 5.2 mld and Shahganj nala with 0.34 mld flow remain untapped.

Moreover, the city has a treatment capacity of 28 mld and generates wastewater in the range of 49.5 mld. The rest is discharged untreated into the river. Even the treated effluent from Masani sewage treatment plant and Kulu Ka Nagla STP is discharged into the river. Hence, it is not surprising that the river remains dirty. This is despite the fact that under YAP, Rs 2.34 crore was spent on every kilometre in the 15-km stretch of the Yamuna in the Mathura stretch.

At Agra, there are 10 drains that discharge waste upstream of the old water works at Jeevan Mandi, besides the effluent discharged from Burhi ka Nagla STP and the Peela Khat STP. Similarly 11 drains discharge into river downstream. The top six drains in Agra contribute over 70 per cent of water discharge from the city.

Agra invested Rs 77.75 crore under YAP till September 2005. But the sewage discharge has increased by 180 per cent and the BOD load has increased by 41 per cent. “Poor planning based on suspect data has combined with faulty operations and unfulfilled maintenance promises to keep the river dirty,” writers of Sewage Canal say in the book.

There is no consensus between government agencies on the amount of wastewater generated in Agra. The Central Pollution Control Board puts it at 211 mld based on its figure of 210 litres per capita per day of water supply. But the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam says that the water demand has shot up from 284 mld to 320 mld and hence the wastewater discharged has also increased. This difference in data affects the planning for the city.

The three STPs in Agra have a capacity to treat 35 per cent of the domestic wastewater generated in Agra. The remaining in discharged untreated into the river. This equation changes completely when we consider the actual amount of waste generated and treated at Agra STPs.

Needed: a Revival Action Plan

“What we need is to maximise utilisation of the existing treatment facilities and ensure reuse of treated effluents,” says CSE. All waste – legal and illegal, sewered and unsewered – must be trapped and treated and not mixed with untreated sewage. Centralised STPs cannot be the only option – the cost of transporting waste to the treatment facility and transporting treated effluent back to the point of reuse makes them too expensive to run. Therefore, treatment facilities need to be constructed close to the source of sewage generation.

Based on these principles, a detailed plan for the main drains of the two cities, which contribute the most to the pollution in the river, should be made and implemented.

Simultaneously, steps should also be taken to achieve dilution in the river – mainly by reducing the demand for freshwater by cities upstream like Delhi. Fiscal instruments – like taxing water-guzzling flush toilets – can work. Simultaneously, an attempt needs to be made to revive the waterbodies and their catchment areas to store maximum run-off, which could then be used for local water needs or could be released into the river for dilution.

Says CSE: “We must remember that whatever amount of waste we manage to treat will be inadequate, and the technology to treat the waste is hugely expensive. It will be a battle which we will never win if we continue fighting it the way that we have been doing all this while. The only way out is to rethink our approach.”