Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan appeal to stop futile beautification of water bodies

NEW DELHI: On World Wetlands Day the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan sent an appeal to LT Governor Najeeb Jung, begging him to stop the meaningless beautification of water bodies in Delhi by filling them with ground water. Instead, it is appealing for ecological restoration plans to be put in place to return the water bodies to their natural capacity in catching rainwater and return to an ecological environment.
"The very purpose of these water bodies is to recharging the ground water," says Manoj Misra, Convenor of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan - an NGO dedicated to protect the Yamuna River and the water bodies in Delhi. "It goes against the ecological purpose of the water bodies to fill them with ground water. It is an attempt at beautification, but a process of restoration should not mean just some embellishment of the area."
An example is Sanjay Lake, located in East Delhi. An artificial lake in 1970, Sanjay Lake has since become dilapidated, its water body barely half its original quantity. It has been reduced to a marshy cesspool, with waste water flowing in from surrounding communities. In an attempt at beautification, ground water is now being pumped into the lake, to little effect.
The Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan is pushing for an ecological restoration plan based on two words: refill and reforest. "The water bodies have to be cleaned and filtered to allow them to collect rainwater successfully, and the areas around them should be reforested using local tree species," says Misra. According to him, nature does not need any embellishment; it just needs to be encouraged to fulfill its original role.
Over the past decade, ground water extraction has increased dramatically, with very little being done to re-supply underground wells. Despite laws demanding a change in building construction to allow rooftop rainwater harvesting, there has been no active steps to realize this goal. Considering shrinking ground water levels, using the precious resource in beatification schemes to refill polluted water bodies is an effort in futility.