For Delhi’s survival, let Yamuna be a river again
Hindustan TimesTen-year-old Aryaman Bharadwaj was taken aback when he saw water swirling under the Nizamuddin Bridge last week. As he wondered whatever happened to the stinky drain he had always seen there, his father couldn’t help but compliment the river by tweeting: “Delhi’s swollen #Yamuna looks like a calm #Brahmaputra.” People swim across the swollen Yamuna river, in New Delhi on Sunday, July 29, 2018. The Yamuna with its sand aquifer that runs two km wide and nearly 40 metres deep along the 48-km stretch in Delhi is the city’s best non-invasive storage of fresh water. To save its lifeline, Delhi must fix the basics: • Delhi’s water policy estimates that the city can capture 140 MGD from rainwater runoffs alone. • Delhi needs to revive its natural water bodies, which met much of the local water requirement across the city till not so long ago.