Never-ending cleanup: Volunteers battle waste along Yamuna

Time of India

05-05-2025

New Delhi: For the past six years, Pankaj Kumar and a handful of volunteers have been cleaning the Yamuna's banks at Kalindi Kunj every Sunday. But every week, they find the riverine area as polluted as earlier — with garbage, medical waste, discarded clothes, idols and puja material, polybags, liquor bottles, sometimes even carcasses of animals, either dumped there or ferried by the river.
Cleaning the Yamuna has proved a daunting task for both the state and central govts. Cleaning the ghats is equally challenging. Yet, the group that calls itself
Team Earth Warriors
perseveres with its seemingly never-ending effort to provide the city with a small section of riverbank that is natural and thriving.
Among the last stretches of the river within Delhi's jurisdiction, the ghat stretches to around 400 metres from the Kalindi Kunj barrage on the right bank. People perform rituals here despite the pollution. "When I was at this ghat for the first time in 2019, I found it so dirty that I didn't even want to stand there. The frothy water stank and the bank was even filthier," said Kumar. "Over the years, we have cleared most of the legacy waste, but the problem is far from over. Every Sunday, we carry away a small truckload of garbage again and again."
Kumar's warriors worked without much help from govt or govt department until the municipal corporation send a garbage truck where the volunteers could segregate the waste and dump it. Even then, a Delhi Police barricade at the ghat entrance is a hassle. "We have to carry the garbage about half a kilometre to load it in the truck because the barricade doesn't allow the MCD truck through," said Kumar.
Vishwas Dwivedi, a software engineer from Gurgaon, has volunteered every Sunday since Sept last year. Referring reverentially to the river as "Yamuna ji," the young techie feels that poor civic sense and lack of maintenance and facilities like a dump are what turn the riverbank into an eyesore.
"Despite creating awareness about cleanliness, people often discard rubbish in front of us with impunity," said Dwivedi. "They also throw trash into the river from the bridge. So even when we clean it over and over again, the Yamuna remains polluted."
Neeta Pal, a teacher who has volunteered for five years, pointed out that while a lot has changed, a little help from officials could help preserve their work for a longer period of time. "We have seen almost every sort of waste. The worst are headless carcasses of animals like buffalo and calves," Pal said. There are no dustbins at the ghat, and the area is used to perform the Shradh rites, so it means people dump their clothes there too. We often have to dig in the sandy area to clean the ghat properly." She also alleged having seen contractors emptying septage in the nearby Agra canal.