Beloved Lifelines (HT)

New Delhi, June 2 - Vinod K Jain, founder-chairman of the NGO Tapas, recently took a boat ride to the more polluted stretches of the river Yamuna in Delhi but had to turn back in a hurry as he started feeling sick. "You are likely to faint if you go to the more polluted parts... or even die," says the man whose RTI query recently got the Delhi Jal Board to admit that the treated sewage water was only fit for horticultural purposes, and not for bathing.

That is the sorry, shameful state to which the holy Yamuna has been reduced to today... surprising, since the river supplies almost 70 per cent of Delhi's water needs.

Jain, a jewellery exporter who also taught commerce at Delhi University for some time, runs Tapas with his own money because he doesn't want any interference in the tough battles he fights. Recounting the filing of a PIL in the Delhi High Court, and later the Supreme Court, for the protection of the Yamuna flood plains and cleaning, Jain says he had to work hard to spread his message. "I went for seminars and conferences to educate the media and the people about related issues, met the chief minister, the lieutenant governor, the union urban minister and wrote to other bodies," he says. "The response that I got to my RTI query was surprising. No one was willing to take responsibility for the river, not the state government, nor the DJB, nor the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the MCD, Ministry of Water Resources, or the Central Water Commission," Jain adds.

So taken aback was he that this water activist showed the responses he had received to the judges of the Delhi High Court to his petition. To not take responsibility for a river that's a lifeline to millions is unforgivable, he feels. "Why is it then that when it comes to the doling out funds, everyone stands in queue for the money," he asks.

For someone who doesn't believe in collecting crowds and shouting slogans to attract attention to his cause, Jain has triumphed often. He has been instrumental in getting the ban on plastic bags in place. Thanks to him, the DDA has had to revise a zonal plan for 2006 for theYamuna and formulate a new one which disallows concretisation of areas near the river and gives the the go-ahead to green activities. A court order following Jain's PIL on delinking of sewerage from storm-water drains was also accepted by the Delhi government. A law was also passed disallowing disposal of flowers and other material for puja into the river, "though nobody has been challaned till now", rues Jain. Such issues have been duly highlighted by the media and pressure has been built on government authorities to come up with solutions - "one of them being the laying of sewer lines in 189 rural villages," says Jain.

What is interesting, he adds, is that during some of his ‘save Yamuna' awareness programmes, a lot of young people and schoolchildren have come up to him to ask how they can contribute to the revival of the river.

The answers to their questions might well be with Vimlendu Jha, 30, founder and executive director of NGO ‘Swechha - We for change', which educates people about the condition of the Yamuna. Young Jha is at the moment busy with a new programme, optimistically titled ‘Influence'. It provides an opportunity to young people to do volunteer work for the environment, including the river Yamuna. So far, says Jha, "we have got 350 volunteers from different parts of Delhi and we will place them in various NGOs for experience in conservation and welfare work".

"I had wanted to start a chai shop," he laughs. "I got into conservation work more by accident. He started Swechha (then taglined ‘We for Yamuna') in 2000 "for my personal love for the river. And when the movement began we had lots of people joining us," he says.

Should money be the motivating factor for someone wanting to become a conservationist?

"Look at me," says Jha, "I'm not dying of poverty, I can take care of myself. You don't have to be a billionaire to be a happy person. One does not have to wear khadi and hawai chappals to be a river conservationist. You can wear Levis and flaunt a Blackberry. It depends on how socially responsible you are - so you can be a doctor or an engineering dude and at the same time do something for the revival of the river."

For Jain, money doesn't matter, dreams do. "The river is effectively dead, there is no aquatic life in it. I hope things improve and one day we see people going for walks by the riverside."

And we all live on in hope.

Author: Ayesha Banerjee (HT Horizons)

Date: 11th June, 2010

---

For further details about related courses and colleges please click below:

Related courses and colleges