Yamuna River's Water "Looking Cleaner" Amid Lockdown: Delhi Jal Board

The closure of industrial units in Delhi-NCR during the lockdown led to an improvement in water quality of the Yamuna river toxic wastes and effluents are not being discharged into it, said vice-chairman of Delhi Jal Board Raghav Chadha.

"Many industries and offices are closed due to the lockdown these days and therefore the Yamuna is looking cleaner these days. The stoppage of industrial pollutants and industrial waste has definitely had a positive effect on water quality. We will conduct testing of the water to ascertain the percentage of improvement in the quality," Mr Chadha said.

A 21-day nation-wide lockdown was imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

The improvement in this period hints that there is a chance for the Yamuna River to get cleaned up easily if the people and the government come together, the Aam Aadmi Party leader said.

"Under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi chief minister), we had promised to clean up the Yamuna. The lockdown has shown us that it is possible, however, it will not stay in place forever," he said.

Imran, a Delhi resident, said he usually comes to the river banks to run and practice gymnastics and has seen a drastic improvement since the lockdown was imposed. "The water in the Yamuna looks much cleaner nowadays."

The quality of water of the Ganga river has also seen a significant improvement, experts say.

"One-tenth of the pollution in the Ganga river comes from industries. As industries are shut due to lockdown, the situation has become better. We have seen a 40-50 percent improvement in the Ganga. It is a significant development," Dr PK Mishra, Professor at Chemical Engineering and Technology, IIT-BHU, said.

"Due to rainfall on March 15-16 in areas where Ganga flows, the water level has also increased, which means that its cleaning capacity has also increased. There is a considerable improvement if we look at the pre-lockdown period and after March 24," he added.