Maily se Nirmal Yamuna Revitalization Plan 2017

A Bench of the National Green Tribunal comprising of the Justice Swatanter Kumar (Chairperson), Justice M.S. Nambiar (Judicial Member), Dr. D.K. Agrawal (Expert Member) and Prof. A.R. Yousuf (Expert Member) gave 28 directions for implementation of the project called, ‘Maily Se Nirmal Yamuna’ Revitalization Project, 2017, to be completed by 31st March, 2017.

Under these directions, the bench put an instant fine of Rs 5,000 on anyone spotted throwing waste in Yamuna, as is generally seen in Delhi where people dispose worship material waste into the holy river from bridges across it.  Also bench put up a fine of Rs 50,000 on dumping of construction debris in the river.

The directions were given by the principal bench of NGT presided over by Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar. The tribunal's judgment came on a petition by Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan against pollution in the Yamuna and covering of drains in Delhi.

Directions given by bench are

• Impose a fine of 5000 rupees on individuals for throwing waste or religious items into the river.
• Banned on dumping of construction material into the Yamuna while imposing a fine of 50,000 rupees on the violators.
• Restrained real estate developers from carrying out any construction work on the floodplains.
• It also directed states that where Yamuna and its tributaries flow come up with an action plan to ensure environmental flow to revive the Yamuna stretch in Delhi.
• The bench directed that 4000 cr. rupees, are estimated by the expert committee but made it available from the 20000 cr. rupees according to the Budget of Delhi Government.

Constitution of a committee to implement the directions 

The bench decided to constitute a principal committee which will be responsible for implementation of the judgment.

The committee will consist of the Special Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), joint secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources, chief secretary of Delhi, vice-chairman DDA, commissioners of all corporations and the state secretaries of Haryana, UP, Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand.

Members of the expert committees earlier constituted by NGT — including professor emeritus of DU C R Babu, former professor of JNU Brij Gopal and IIT Delhi professor A K Gosain — were also made members of the principal committee.

The Union government has been implementing Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) for cleaning of Yamuna River with assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency, without much success.