Dying Yamuna needs urgent help, say green activists

By Brij Khandelwal Agra, March 13 : Ahead of the ‘Rivers Action Day’ on Sunday, a series of conclaves were held in the holy city of Vrindavan along with meetings of green activists in Agra in Uttar Pradesh against the neglect of the Yamuna river.
“Those in power care neither for humans nor for stones,” was the general chorus against the neglect of the Yamuna river at the conclaves in Vrindavan, which is now organising the Vaishnav Kumbh.
The angry sants in Vrindavan have demanded immediate steps to restore the Yamuna’s pristine glory by releasing fresh water and stopping pollution by industries and continuous discharge of sewage into the holy river.
Municipal bodies have failed to stop the drains opening into the Yamuna in upstream urban clusters of Haryana and Delhi, said members of the ‘River Connect Campaign’ in the Taj city.
“Already one can notice colonies of bacteria in the Yamuna behind the Taj Mahal which is being defaced by green patches at the rear.
Conservationists have also raised an alarm. “The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has promised to clean the marble surface, but when they would act, we do not know. If there had been a continuous flow of fresh water in the Yamuna, this problem which is now a prominent one, would not have arisen,” said Shravan Kumar Singh, Vice-President of the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society in Agra.