Filthy flows the Sahibi
Anuradha Dutt
A signboard proclaiming
Haritima resort,
outside a tourist
complex between the
outlying villages of
Chhawla and
Kanganheri, is misleading as the
place has as yet not opened to visitors.
Haritima resort
Conceived by Delhi Tourism and
Transportation Development
Corporation as an adventure sports
complex and eco-park with leisure
facilities, it is located near the
noxious Najafgarh Nehar or Nullah in Southwest Delhi. Water sports,
boating, ballooning, shopping and
an open air theatre are proposed to
be factored into recreation options.
Air conditioned tents for tourists'
stay are to be set up.
The Union Ministry of Tourism has pledged financial aid. In order to
make the Najafgarh drain fit for
rowing/canoeing and slalom,
recognised in the Olympics and
Asian Games, water treatment is to
be prioritised as per international
sporting standards. This is intended
to give a tremendous boost to
efforts to restore the nullah,
infamous for being one of the
capital's most polluted drains, as a
rivulet. But on the ground, nothing
seems to have been done to clean
up the channel.
The story of Najafgarh Nehar or
Nullah, which originates in the
Sahibi river in Rajasthan before
snaking its way through Haryana
into Southwest Delhi and then
emptying into the Yamuna, is a
record of abysmal neglect by policymakers
and Delhi Jal Board.
Reduced to a smelly carrier of untreated sewage and industrial
effluent, it still manages to attract
thousands of migratory birds during
winter from other states as well as
countries beyond India's northern
borders.
Local thorn brush and wetland birds are found in all seasons.
Neelgai, monkeys and other forest
creatures seek refuge in the thick
tree cover lining the nehar while
birds cluster together in the murky
water. This serene spectacle is
marred by floating garbage and
refuse piled up on the slope leading
down to the nullah..
Haven for birds
There are myriad species of birds:
Warblers, Shrikes, Flame-back
Woodpeckers, Hoopoes, Spotted
Owlets, Indian Rollers, Wagtails, Bull
Bulls, Green Pigeons, Shikra,
Drongos endangered Painted Stork,
Sarus Crane, Black, White and
Glossy Ibis, Black-tailed Godwit and
Black-necked Stork, Waders, Painted
Storks. Other birds include Purple
More Hens, Graylag Geese, Comb
Ducks, Pintails, Bar-headed Geese,
Pied Avocet, Northern Shoveler,
Ruddy Shelduck, Common Coot,
Red-Crowned Ibis, Gadwal, Ruff,
Eurasian Spoonbill and Greater
Flamingoes.
In view of the city's rapidly
shrinking forests and depletion of
the Yamuna's ground water by
urban encroachments on the flood
plains, one might have expected
policy-makers to optimise
conservation of existing natural
resources so as to reduce pollution,
augment water supply and improve
quality of life.
The Delhi government's biggest
challenge during the parched
summer months is arranging for
sufficient water to meet burgeoning
demands. Environmental experts
have since long been advising
administrators to revive the
wetlands, lakes and other water
sources that have diminished or
become receptacles for the city's
garbage, industrial effluent and
human waste. The nehar has featured in plans as a potential
water source for West Delhi colonies
and contiguous areas in Haryana.
Yamuna revival plan
This would hinge on prevention
of untreated sewage and factories'
residue being emptied into the
channel, part of the larger plan to
clean up the Yamuna as it flows
through Delhi by thwarting such
discharge into the river from drains.
Najafgarh Nullah is one of the major
ones.
The Aam Aadmi Party
government in the capital is
reported to have formulated the
'Yamuna Turnaround Plan'. A Delhi
Jal Board official was quoted last
May as saying that the proposal
"looks at the river in a holistic way
and covers all aspects to maintain
the health of its ecosystem such as
stopping the sewage and industrial
effluents from entering into it,
identifying all the point and nonpoint
sources of pollution,
ecological development of the
riverfront, creating and reviving
water bodies for water recharge,
creating public spaces for cycling,
walking and recreation, even
restoring the polluting drains that
merge into the river".
The plan envisages upgrading
sewage treatment plants for
efficient functioning; desilting the
drains and Yamuna; making ten
reservoirs; and creating large ecofriendly
public spaces and
riverfront. The cost of
implementation is estimated at Rs
6,000 crore.
Najafgarh jheel
A view of the nullah
The Delhi government wants the
Union Water Resources Ministry to
pitch in since it already has a
decades-old plan to clean up the
Ganga, Yamuna and other rivers.
Cleaning up the city's drains, with
the focus on the main ones,
including Najafgarh Nullah, is a
central feature of the scheme. Just
upgrading the sewage treatment
plant at Najafgarh drain is expected to cost Rs 1,400 crore, with an
additional Rs 800 crore required for
dredging the channel, and Rs 500
crore for constructing cycle tracks
and walkways alongside.
Indian National Trust for Art and
Cultural Heritage (INTACH) had
proposed to Delhi Development
Authority and Haryana Urban
Development Authority that
Najafgarh Jheel, a large water body,
linked to the nehar and which spilt
into Haryana from Delhi, be revived.
The lake shrank drastically after the
nehar was widened for flood control
purposes in Southwest Delhi, and a
bund was built four decades ago,
which blocked water flow into the
lake on the Delhi side.
INTACH's plea is that "the jheel, if
revived would not only be a huge
reservoir catering to the needs of
the residents of Delhi and Gurgaon,
it would also be a very important
source for recharge of the
groundwater aquifers".
The organisation ascribes the fact
of the lake becoming "nearly extinct"
to "the acts of omission and
commission of the various
respondents": that is, Haryana and
Delhi governments, and the Centre.
The lake is marked in the Delhi master plan 2021 but so far, no
measures have been undertaken to
revive the jheel. The Haryana
government recently informed the
National Green Tribunal that the
jheel would be identified as a
wetland after denying that it existed
at all.
Its revival would serve to create a
valuable bio-sphere in the arid
concrete jungle, providing a natural
habitat for birds, animals, snakes
and other creatures that have been driven to the edge by relentless
urban expansion.
"There are more than 200 storm
water streams in Delhi, of which
Najafgarh is the largest. Really, it is a
river in its own right. And unless it is
restored in its all glory there is little
hope for the rejuvenation of river
Yamuna in the city. Najafgarh nullah
at 2000 mld brings the most water
to river Yamuna within the city
limits. Today it is all toxic waste
water, a mix of sewage (treated
and untreated), industrial effluent
and surface run off. Once
Najafgarh drain starts to carry
good clean water from its
restoration as a riverine system, the
river would rejuvenate to a
great extent," notes Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan Convenor Manoj Mishra.
Drishadwati river'
Bird perched on the dirty water of the nullah
Plans to restore both the nehar and the jheel also draw attention to
the civilisational ethos associated
with Sahibi, which is identified by
some Hindu scholars with the Vedic
Drishadwati river, just as they see the Ghaggar that flows through
Haryana as corroboration of the
existence of the ancient Saraswati
river in the remote past. For them, this is not myth-making but a
glimpse of India's antiquity.
Myriad Indus Valley Civilisation
sites, now renamed Indus-Saraswati
Civilisation by Hindutva advocates, are believed to have developed
along the course of the Saraswati
but were abandoned when the river
began to dry up, shift course or
became a subterranean flow.
Similarly, Drishadwati once hosted
Indus Valley sites on its banks; and
later, Vedic rishis are believed to
have meditated there and
composed richas.
In this idealised view,
Brahmavart, expanse of land where
the Vedic ethos was born and
flourished, as per Hindutva
scholarship, spread out between
Saraswati and Drishadwati. Gazing
at the stinking, turgid mess in the
Najafgarh nullah and putrefying
garbage in its precincts, it is difficult
to believe that this swathe of land
and water channel, fallen into such a
wretched state, could have been
part of Brahmavart. Trees densely
lining the motorable road along the
nullah and birds converging below
somewhat redeem the squalour.