HC pulls up Delhi govt over Yamuna pollution asks CS to take action against erring officials over waterlogging

New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) The high court here on Tuesday asked the Delhi chief secretary to step in and take administrative action against erring officials responsible for not desilting drains in the city that led to waterlogging, instead of presenting a "rosy picture" before the court.
     The court also pulled up the Delhi government for its failure to regulate the emission of sewage and industrial waste in the Yamuna River, stating that its Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) were not working according to capacity and something was "drastically wrong" with them.
     The court said that the Yamuna is clean till Delhi and then it gets highly polluted.
     "Something is drastically wrong. STPs are not working. Who is monitoring them? Yamuna is coming clean till Delhi then it gets highly polluted at ITO and Kashmiri Gate, ISBT. This is due to the industrial waste.
     "Who is monitoring unauthorised industrial units in Delhi? There cannot be so much toxicity in water," a Delhi High Court bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora said.
     The court was dealing with two suo motu petitions, initiated on its own, on the water logging problem in Delhi and on the issue of rainwater harvesting and easing traffic jams in the national capital during monsoon and other periods.
     It was also hearing pleas of several Delhi residents, including lawyers, over the flooding of roads, homes and offices after rains due to clogged stormwater and sewage drains.
     During the hearing, a virtual presentation was given before the bench by the office of Chief Secretary Dharmendra on the steps being taken on various issues, including desilting drains and action on unauthorised polluting industries in residential areas.
     As the officer presenting the report claimed that the water quality was improving and would further get better in the next three months since many of the projects were going to be completed, the bench said the officials should go to the ground level and speak to the public to come to terms with the reality.
     "If so many steps are being taken, things should improve. Just see the photographs of Chhath Puja where women were performing puja in the water. See the amount of toxic foam. A woman is mistaking the foam in the water to be a shampoo. We all live in the city. We know exactly what it is.
     "If you think the quality is improving, then good luck to you. You may be the only person who thinks so," the bench said.
     It added that the same Delhi government has said that Yamuna was highly polluted and they cannot allow people to perform Chhath puja at the river banks.
     There are so many people, including lawyers, standing in the court and saying that no desilting work was done in their areas.
     "How come your data has so much variation with the ground level reality," the court asked.
     "This is a rosy picture that your officers are painting. If that is the situation, there would have been no floods in Delhi this year. You can't be misleading the court and the public," it said.
     The bench asked the chief secretary, who was also present in the hearing virtually, to take administrative action and fix responsibility on officials for not completing desilting work during the year within the fixed time frame.
     It also asked the chief secretary to think about some out-of-the-box suggestions for improving the situation in the city, to which the bureaucrat said, "Yes we will apply our minds and do something".
     The court said it would pass an order on the issue and incorporate the government's report in it so that the details come into the public domain and listed the matter for further hearing on November 22.
     The lawyers appearing for the aggrieved citizens have claimed that drains in their area were not desilted before the onset of the monsoon season, and when the exercise was undertaken by the authorities in some areas, the sludge was left on the road, only to be carried back into the drain after fresh rainfall.
     Some lawyers claimed their offices in Defence Colony, Malviya Nagar and Maharani Bagh were flooded to the extent that their printers and computers got damaged and furniture and refrigerators were floating.
     The court also heard the issue of flooding in Kotla Mubarakpur and Garhi village.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)