Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu said the city’s 22-km Yamuna stretch accounts for 76% of its pollution. He noted that an "Aviral and Nirmal" Ganga could only be achieved with an uninterrupted and clean Yamuna. Sandhu urged students to avoid throwing plastic and puja material into the river to help.
Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu has sought to connect the city's Yamuna clean-up challenge with the larger Ganga conservation effort, pointing to the disproportionate pollution burden carried by the river during its short passage through the capital.
The figure gives the Delhi pollution problem a wider significance: the condition of the Yamuna in the capital is not only a local environmental issue but also affects the river system downstream and, ultimately, the Ganga.
L-G Sandhu said an "Aviral and Nirmal" Ganga -- an uninterrupted and clean river -- could only be achieved with an uninterrupted and clean Yamuna. He used the occasion to urge students to adopt and promote simple behavioural changes, particularly avoiding the disposal of plastic and puja material into the river and encouraging their families and friends to do the same.
The emphasis on individual behaviour comes against the scale of the pollution burden cited by the L-G. His remarks effectively shift part of the focus from the Yamuna as an environmental asset to be cleaned by government agencies to a river whose condition is also affected by everyday waste disposal.
However, the note does not announce a new project, enforcement measure, funding commitment or institutional mechanism for reducing the pollution attributed to Delhi's stretch of the river. The immediate intervention outlined is largely an appeal to students and households to prevent waste from entering the river.
Sandhu also linked river conservation with the broader question of water-use and protection of natural systems, saying that reverence for the Ganga must be accompanied by responsibility towards the environment and future generations.
The central message is, therefore, less a new policy announcement than a reframing of Delhi's Yamuna problem: the capital's river pollution has consequences beyond the city because the Yamuna eventually meets the Ganga. The 76 per cent figure cited by L-G Sandhu places the focus squarely on the Delhi stretch and underlines the scale of the clean-up challenge if the broader objective of a cleaner Ganga is to be achieved. The Tribune first reported on the pollution caused in this stretch in Yamuna.