Wazirabad threshold: Yamuna before and after

Standing atop a bridge leading to a pumping station at Wazirabad water works, Rashid Khan, 65, looked with an intent gaze at the abundant water.


This was the Yamuna he remembered from his younger days when he was into keeping elephants. He had lived near the ITO bridge with elephants for almost 30 years. Around 10 years ago, the government forcibly evicted them. Long before coming to the Yamuna banks, Rashid and his family had stayed at Ashoka Hotel to enable haathi rides for foreign tourists. 
Over the years, Delhi has had just 8-10 families – all from the same clan and there were a total of 20-22 elephants. But only 10-12 elephants remain today. 
Looking at a bountiful Yamuna, Rashid recalled, “The elephants used to enjoy in monsoon the most, bathing for hours. In summers, it was the hand pump drilled into the Yamuna flood plain, which was used for bathing them.”

Rasheed Khan, Hathi Wallah

The spot where he was standing was part of Delhi Jal Board’s water treatment plant (WTP) at Wazirabad, where members of the Yamuna Katha have gathered at the first stop of day one.   
RK Garg, DJB’s member (water works) gave an elaborate explanation about the water supply system and various sources of water for the national capital. There were interesting nuggets of information like, as much as 40 % of Delhi’s water needs - 325 MGD is the quantity of raw water – comes from Yamuna, or, of the various water user states of Yamuna, Haryana gets 45 %, Uttar Pradesh 30 %, Delhi just 6 % and the rest is shared by Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. As much as 11 million cubic metres of water, i.e. almost 85 % of the water in the river in the entire year is contributed by rains. 
“In Delhi, up to 40-50 lakh people live in unauthorized colonies/slums in Delhi. Their sewage comes directly – untreated – to the river Yamuna,” he lamented. Immediately downstream of Wazirabad barrage start the various drains that empty Delhi’s sewage into the Yamuna. There is no natural water flow after this. 

R K Garg, member of DJB

Rashid nodded in agreement. Over the years he had seen the quality of Yamuna waters change from bad to worst. Overall, the quality of life on the Yamuna banks had changed for worst. Earlier, there was ample fodder for elephants. Fodder was patela – tall grass, sugarcane, jowar , bajra and even papal trees. “But more than anything else, slowly the pollution in Yamuna started taking its toll on the elephants’ skin,” Rashid rued. 
Dr Ritu Priya, public health specialist threw light on the history of Delhi as a capital city, specially, the city’s water history. There was a major cholera epidemic in the 1980s. “Over the ages, Delhi had always been a planned city. But in modern times, the unplanned growth has proved to be a major health hazard.” 

One of Rasheed's elephants getting prepared for a ride

For instance, British New Delhi had no place for class IV employees, she said. So they inhabited fringe colonies. These kind of colonies increased the quantity of untreated sewage being flown into the river. 
Her message: Go for de-centralisation of the water planning system. Second, use modern technology to do natural harvesting and revive natural streams. And last but never the least involve the citizens. “It should be part of the planning as to how we relate to the river,” she said.  

Dr Ritu Priya, JNU, public health specialist

But that is not the case. Government has taken over the ownership of the river from the community and hence restricted people’s access to the river. Rashid is a living example for it. With several government restrictions, there is hardly anyone in the elephant keeping business. The youngsters have turned to horse buggy business. 


Unaware of the plight of youngsters from elephant keeping families, another bunch of youngsters was quite gung ho about the Yamuna and ways to reduce pollution. Sardar Patel School from Lodi Colony had sent its students to Wazirabad WTP. The students – Abhilasha Bakre, Anshula Mehta, Ananjay Sharma, Adarsh Kumar Singh, Shrishti Banzal, Khushboo Chattree and Anoushka Kopila – all from class IX – made a presentation on the concept and their understanding of the National Urban Sanitation Policy vis-à-vis water distribution system, problems due to growing urbanization and possible solutions by community awareness. 


Then, DJB’s quality control officers Vinod Kumar and Pritam Singh showed the group around the water treatment plant, the various steps involved in water treatment. 
GIZ’s Regina Dube asserted it was important to understand the historical dimension for city’s sanitation history. “For the future, we need to understand and link the historical and the cultural dimensions. Also, people from the entire society need to sit together and come up with a developmental solution.”
Earlier, Arne Panesar from GIZ had pointed out how he had badly wanted to meet the haathiwala and ride elephant since he was in college. “The river is very much a symbol for many cities. But experts alone are not enough for thinking about rivers, we need people from all fields,” Panesar added.
Agreed Rashid, who is very clear about his ideas about the Yamuna: “Aadmi change hua, toh darya bhi hua (As the man changes, so has the river).”


So true, especially for Delhiites!!

Till we meet again

“It is only now that I have started to understand what this is all about and now its time to say good bye,” said an enthusiastic Chhotu Khan, one of the team members of Yamuna Katha.

The group of Yamuna Katha yatris had been together since the evening of October 11, 2011 (Tuesday). It was a motley group of people from diverse background, with no connect with each other, but necessarily, all concerned about the Yamuna.

The day’s event was at a place little downstream of the Okhla barrage (this barrage is the border between Delhi and Noida in Uttar Pradesh) on the Delhi side. This is the riverfront of the Madanpur Khadar village, more famous because it is here Durga idols are brought for immersion. The site offered a pathetic scenario with the wooden skeletal remains of the recent Durga idol immersions. Foaming shallow waters were hemmed in on the bank side by the remains of the Durga Puja rituals. There was some repair works going on at the barrage adding to the noise levels.

Bhola and Babita, the other two core members of the team, were the most happy as, how Bhola put it: “This is my ghat (stepped embankment), this is my area.” Bhola’s family has been living at the Madanpur Khadar village for generations. While his father and rest of his clan went on to do fishing for their life, Bhola shifted to becoming a fishing contractor and employees several people under him.

A pandal on the very ghats was the august venue for the discussion “Imagine there was a river”. Arif Ali, professor at the Jamia Milia Islamia and Rakhshanda Jalil from the Council for Social Development joined the Yamuna Katha members. GIZ’s Regina Dube too joined in on the last day.

Prof Ali recalled the time when the Britishers developed the Okhla riverfront as a picnic spot way back in 1870. Okhla village was then just a small hamlet of 20-odd families: some of them were potters while most of them had buffaloes for livelihood. The river bank saw cultivation of a variety of fruits and vegetables.  

He also lamented the fact that Delhi has just 2 % of the length of Yamuna but contributes to 90 % of the pollution.

Rakhshanda Jalil, who has been working for preservation and spreading awareness about heritage monuments, drew parallel between the monuments and the river. “People either are not aware there is a monument and do not at all visit it; or abuse it. Similarly, we have turned blind towards the river, we have stopped coming here.”

Another Madanpur Khadar resident Ratan Singh, who now is employed by city’s water utility Delhi Jal Board (DJB) informed there was a time up to some 40 years ago, when Yamuna waters would be used directly for cooking purposes even for functions such as marriage. “But see the irony. Today if my hand dips in the water, I have to wash it with soap at least twice otherwise, my hand will itch and have infections.”

The debate ranged from what causes pollution and how can one prevent it to how flow rate of the river can be increased and how to deal with the increasing pressure of the population. Bhola pointed out how the local police, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and other government departments work in tandem to provide all kinds of facilities and maintain cleanliness at the time of festivals. His simple query: “If they can do this on three occasions in the year, why not for the rest of the year.”   

Reflections

Back at the hotel after lunch was ‘reflections’, time to go over the last four days of journey together. There were confessions about personal discoveries and in general the mood was ‘we need to meet again.’ Environmentalist and Gandhian Anupam Mishra joined in the Yamuna Katha yatris at the time of reflections.

Bhola, who also works as a life guard, proudly promised: “I have been saving humans for so long. Now I will work to save the Yamuna.” Chhotu Khan said it took him quite some time to realize that he too was a member of the team and he felt proud being associated with it. The two teachers, Vidhu Narayanan and Urmi Chakraborty said they would take back the experience to their school and bring their students to the river bank.

Gayatri Chatterjee said Yamuna gave her a realization that she has yet to learn much and suggested the proceedings be in Hindi to take it to larger audience. The Yamuna Katha in-house river expert Dwijender Kalia suggested a Yamuna Parikrama (circumambulation) till Prayag, where the Yamuna meets Ganga. Rashid Khan, the haathi-wala, resolved to join the larger fight.

Anumpam Mishra said in our limited life span, we cannot even think of cleaning the Yamuna. “Instead, we should concentrate on not polluting it,” he said.

With a resolve to meet again and again, everyone dispersed with a promise to self – as Ashish said – to make the Yamuna Katha (a tale of Yamuna) into a Yamuna Mahakavya (an epic for Yamuna). 

Yamuna in Delhi: The discovery begins

The location could not have been better. A beautiful full-to-the brim Yamuna flowed right besides where the Yamuna Katha journey started at Wazirabad.

After what seemed to be ages, the wait was over. Yamuna Katha, the project envisaged to bridge the gap between the river and the people and to understand the river-city dyad got off to a fantastic start.

Babita and Bhola Kashyap, from the fishermen’s community, from Madanpur Khadar; Chhotu Khan, a farmer tilling land on the Yamuna banks at Jagatpur; Dwijendra Kalia, a river specialist residing in Mayur Vihar; Gayatri Chatterjee, a social scientist from Pune; Rashid Khan, a haathi wala; Urmi Chakraborty (CR Park) and Vidhu Narayanan (Mayur Vihar), both teachers at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya – these contributed to the diversity of the core group.

At the Wazirabad water works of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), the city’s water utility, the core group and other members of the GIZ, were joined in by few students from the Sardar Patel Vidyalaya.

At the outset, DJB’s RK Garg, member (Water Supply/Drainage) gave an elaborate talk on Yamuna’s importance for Delhi and the urban sanitation scenario.  As much as 40 % of Delhi’s water needs are met by Yamuna, he said adding, “The unauthorized colonies add the maximum of the untreated sewage to the river”. A sewage master plan 2031 is in the pipeline, he informed.       

Arne Panesar of GIZ pointed out that experts alone are not enough to deal with the problem of river pollution. “We need people from diverse background,” he said.

Dr Ritu Priya, professor School of Social Sciences, JNU, gave the historical perspective of water distribution concepts. “There was never a place for people from class four in the British design for New Delhi. This led to inhabitation of the fringes and these unauthorized colonies increases untreated sewage,” she said.

Abhilasha Bakre, Anshula Mehta, Ananjay Sharma, Adarsh Kumar Singh, Shrishti Banzal, Khushboo Chattree and Anoushka Kopila – all class IX students of Sardar Patel Vidyalaya from plush Lodi Estate area of New Delhi too keenly took part in the activity.

Some activity by way of a project was already being done by them at their school level. Now, specially for the Yamuna Katha, these students came up with a project comprising various components, right from the stage of conception to implementation. Anshula Mehta said, “Social isolation can be mirrored by physical isolation. Access to sanitation can bring about the desired change.”

GIZ’s Regina Dube said it is for sure that there can’t be a simple and single solution. “The need is for the people from diverse background sit together and develop solutions for a clean, pollution free river,” she added.   

Then there was a round of the Wazirabad water works, first such experience for almost the entire group.

Next stop was the Tibetan resettlement colony at Majnu Ka Tilla. The colony was set up in 1961 with just 18 families that had escaped from Tibet then and came down to Delhi. Today, it has the same area but as many as 361 families. The colony, with narrow yet clean congested lanes, is awaiting regularization.

Dorjee Dhomdup, the Pradhan (head) of the resident welfare association and Rinzin Wangmo from the Women’s association, took great care of the group. On the cards was another first for most of the group. A visit to the actual sandy, alluvial Yamuna bank!!!

Just across the compound wall of the Tibetan colony, started the neat geometric designed farms wherein were grown variety of vegetables. Families tilling the flood plains lived on the Yamuna plains in make shift huts. The Yamuna flow – barely half a kilometer from the Wazirabad barrage – was reduced to just a black drain, flowing far away from the bank.

After a sumptuous Tibetan lunch, was time for a small yet wonderful cultural programme by students of the Tibetan school. It was followed by a panel discussion ‘Strong ties or loose connections?’ Everyone agreed that it was high time government agencies – specially the DJB – should be blamed for the pollution and it is time for each member of the society to do something.

The final session was held when the team Yamuna returned to the hotel. After a quick round of tea and snack, the team deliberated over the events during the day and also discussed the following day’s programmes.

Yamuna Katha has started

Today evening the Yamuna Katha event was formally inaugurated at the Red Fox Hotel in East Delhi. Here are some impressions:

First gathering and interaction of the core group (photo: Alex Koecher)

Mr Bernd Dunnzlaff, representative of the German Embassy
giving an inaugural address together with Mrs Aparna Das
of the Yamuna Katha Team (photo: Alex Koecher) 

Mr Bernd Dunnzlaff together with Mr Arne Panesar, Country Manager
for India of GIZ (photo: Alex Koecher)

Mrs Regina Dube, Head of Sustainable Urban Habitat Unit of GIZ
together with Aparna Das (photo: Alex Koecher)

Mrs Aparna Das introducing Mr Rasheed, Hathi Wallah and
core group member of Yamuna Katha (photo: Alex Koecher)

Mrs Aparna Das introducing Mr Chotu Khan, farmer and
core group member of Yamuna Katha (photo: Alex Koecher) 

Mrs Aparna Das introducing Mrs Babita, fisher women and
core group member of Yamuna Katha (photo: Alex Koecher)

Mrs Aparna Das introducing Mrs Gayatri Chatterjee, Social Scientist and
core group member of Yamuna Katha (photo: Alex Koecher)

Mr Bola, fisher man, life saving guard and core group member of
Yamuna Katha (photo: Alex Koecher)