The efforts to clean the Yamuna will be boosted through wide ranging awareness campaigns, including involving priests to discourage people from throwing waste generated during religious ceremonies into the river, officials at the Delhi LG office said on Wednesday.
The plan is to approach the priests of major temples as well as those located along the banks of the Yamuna and get their help in urging people not to throw waste items like clothes, old idols, calender, posters, flowers among others in the river, an official said.
In view of the extreme importance of public participation in the Yamuna rejuvenation efforts, it has been decided to undertake wide ranging awareness generation and motivational IEC (information, education and communication) campaigns on various media platforms.
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"In this direction, priests will be involved and sensitized to deter people from throwing religious waste into the river," said a statement from the LG office.
The recent efforts by Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena towards cleaning and rejuvenation of the Yamuna have begun to show visible and concrete results, it said.
"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," it said.
Personnel of the Territorial Army deployed on the banks of Yamuna at the initiative of the LG prevented waste generated during religious ceremonies from being thrown into the river and collecting the same for disposal in an eco-friendly manner after Ram Navami.
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Territorial Army personnel also recently stopped washing of packaging polybags and sacks in the Najafgarh drain near the Inderlok metro station. The Irrigation and Flood Control department has issued challan to the owner of packaging material, said the statement.
Various macro and micro-level steps have been taken by a high level committee chaired by the LG, formed at the direction of National Green Tribunal, that have begun showing results in the shape of relatively improved pollution levels in the Yamuna where the Najafgarh drain emptys into the river, it said.
Trapping of sub-drains flowing into the Najafgarh drain, restoration of floodplains at Kudasia Ghat, Asita East, Baansera and the stretch between Bela Farm and Garhi Mandu, are other initiatives for rejuvenation of the river and its floodplain, the statement added.
