HNZ Bridge Vigil for the River – A Report
BACKGROUND:
It is well known that the urban stretches of river Yamuna in places like Delhi, Mathura and Agra are in worst shape in terms of the pollution of its waters as well as the threatened state of the river’s flood plain.
Of the many causes of rampant pollution in the river, like number of drains bringing sewage and other pollutants into the river from the cities, one which has an important role, but not much appreciated is the dumping of household waste (principally, left overs from religious ceremonies) into the river from the number of bridges that straddle the river in these cities. It may be recalled that to prevent such a practice the government has under the Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) raised metal wire mesh fence on either side of a number of these bridges. Unfortunately these fences have little prevention value left since miscreants have cut windows at strategic places in them and some people would still prefer vaulting polythene bags full of household refuse over the fence into the hapless river. (see pics).
We at the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, have endeavoured to observe and document these practices on the HNZ Bridge cum Road (NH 24) since January 2009 to try and understand the practice (see pics) as narrated above with an objective to work towards a workable strategy that could prevent such pollution of the river.
Then on 14th of August 2009 (The Janmashtami day) we tried to test run a preventive methodology (see pics) with an aim to practice it over a prolonged duration as an experiment cum educational campaign. Enthused by the people’s response on that day we decided to launch a month long vigil for the river at the HNZ Bridge during the month of September 2009 as a citizen’s initiative that goes beyond merely lamenting and blaming the state agencies for the sad state of the river.
The reason why we chose this month was the fact that most religious ceremonies / functions beginning with Ganesh Chaturthi, Shraddh, Dussehra and Durga Puja fell in this month.
Later on 27th of August 2009, we held a half day brainstorming session (see pic) with local pujaris in east Delhi to get their inputs into our plans.
THE PURPOSE
a) Use the experience of a days’ test run to persuade people from not throwing things into the river and hand over the things to our volunteers for safe disposal
BACKGROUND:
It is well known that the urban stretches of river Yamuna in places like Delhi, Mathura and Agra are in worst shape in terms of the pollution of its waters as well as the threatened state of the river’s flood plain.
Of the many causes of rampant pollution in the river, like number of drains bringing sewage and other pollutants into the river from the cities, one which has an important role, but not much appreciated is the dumping of household waste (principally, left overs from religious ceremonies) into the river from the number of bridges that straddle the river in these cities. It may be recalled that to prevent such a practice the government has under the Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) raised metal wire mesh fence on either side of a number of these bridges. Unfortunately these fences have little prevention value left since miscreants have cut windows at strategic places in them and some people would still prefer vaulting polythene bags full of household refuse over the fence into the hapless river. (see pics).
We at the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, have endeavoured to observe and document these practices on the HNZ Bridge cum Road (NH 24) since January 2009 to try and understand the practice (see pics) as narrated above with an objective to work towards a workable strategy that could prevent such pollution of the river.
Then on 14th of August 2009 (The Janmashtami day) we tried to test run a preventive methodology (see pics) with an aim to practice it over a prolonged duration as an experiment cum educational campaign. Enthused by the people’s response on that day we decided to launch a month long vigil for the river at the HNZ Bridge during the month of September 2009 as a citizen’s initiative that goes beyond merely lamenting and blaming the state agencies for the sad state of the river.
The reason why we chose this month was the fact that most religious ceremonies / functions beginning with Ganesh Chaturthi, Shraddh, Dussehra and Durga Puja fell in this month.
Later on 27th of August 2009, we held a half day brainstorming session (see pic) with local pujaris in east Delhi to get their inputs into our plans.
THE PURPOSE
a) Use the experience of a days’ test run to persuade people from not throwing things into the river and hand over the things to our volunteers for safe disposal
b) Observe and document the state of the river in an ongoing manner
c) Utilize the immense visibility of a bridge to reach out to people with river conservation messages.
d) Reach out and network with relevant government agencies.
e) Involve other NGOs, schools and interested individuals in the vigil.
METHODOLOGY:
The vigil was held daily (except on Sundays and such rainy days when it became impossible to keep the vigil) from 9 am – 12 noon and again from 2 pm – 5 pm beginning September 1, 2009 up till September 30, 2009.
Volunteers put up each day the banners (see pic) at a suitable height on the Bridge’s fence and stood at predefined strategic locations on the bridge with bamboo baskets (to collect the material) on the ground and placards (see pics) hanging around their necks.
Each evening, after the vigil was over, the collected material was segregated (into organic and non-organic) and the organic matter (garlands, hawan samagri, food stuff etc) was interned into pits for composting and non organic (polythene bags, idols, paper matter, earthen pots, framed pictures, glass material, metallic pieces etc) material was further segregated and stored safely for planned recycle purposes.
The school children, when they participated, stood vigil for over an hour or so, and then they were requested to draw or write about the ‘Yamuna of their dreams’!
The vigil was regularly documented and the photographs were taken from time to time.
KEY OBSERVATIONS:
1. Misuse of bridges (at least the HNZ Bridge on NH 24) for dumping things (mainly household waste) into the river is rampant.
2. Based on a sample estimate of number of vehicles stopping at the traffic junction for over a minute, we estimated that anything between 75,000 – 100,000 people use the bridge on a normal day.
3. People were seen to come in cars, buses, auto-rickshaws, taxis, bicycle and on foot for the needful. Even government vehicles and vehicles with press stickers were seen to be used for the same.
4. Majority of people (almost 95%) needed little to nil convincing before they handed over their packets (polythene bags, cloth bags, paper bags etc) to the volunteers. Towards the end of the vigil it was heartening for us to note that it was just a small minority of people (1 in 4) who did not deposit the packets on their own into the baskets (without a volunteer manning the site) placed at various places on the pedestrian passage on the bridge.
5. There is some organized gang of miscreants who have a vested interest in opening the windows in the fence to facilitate people to throw things into the river.
6. There is a significant population of labour class people working either in the nearby fields or nurseries, or with construction companies who use the area under the bridge or close to it to live in shanties and eke out a living. Their children often loiter and frequent the bridge and act as conduit (for few coins) for throwing the things into the river.
7. People were by and large appreciative of the effort with some stopping and complimenting the volunteers. There were phone calls from few with suggestions and some even visiting us at the Hanuman temple for personal interaction with us. The pujaris at the Hanuman temple were a source of great encouragement and help throughout the vigil.
8. It was encouraging to find relevant government agencies (PWD and MCD) supportive and appreciative of the effort.
9. It was purely coincidental that over a period of just a month we witnessed the river change from being a stinking sewer drain into its natural vibrant self (thanks to the floods) and back to its sewer status.
10. It was heartening to see school children from a number of schools in the city (some from even as far away as Dwarka) actively participating in the activity.
LEARNINGS AND FINDINGS:
Majority of people at the Nizamudin Bridge come from various parts of East Delhi to dump their offerings into the river.
If festive season is not counted, then majority of people who visit and dump things into the river are doing so on the advice of a pujari or some such person (including elders in the house).
It was a very small minority (4-5%) for whom immersion was a dire necessity. Such people would just not rest till their offering/s was well into the river. The state of river mattered little to them.
Interestingly it was only plastic which many people considered as a source of pollution and hence (about 40%) would take care to not throw it along with the puja material.
Interestingly people from all walks and placements (lawyers, police personnel, staff from DJB, MCD and DDA, Press staff , Priests, Businessmen, public and private service class etc) were seen to visit the bridge for the needful.
On a non festive day an average of 50 to 80 people came to the HNZ Bridge to deposit their things into the river. As against on a festive day the number exceeded 300 going up to more than 500 on the Ashtami and Dashami day.
Interestingly and unfortunately it was not just religious offerings but all sort of domestic waste that people were found to dump into the river. These included things like movie tickets, flour and tea packaging, newspaper bundles, shampoo and gutkha pouches, cough syrup bottles, body care products, tablet wrappers, broken bulbs, switches, shoe polish lotion, ball pens, artificial teeth set, marriage invitations cards, books etc, etc.
Children who habitually loiter on the bridge, create nuisance and assist people in throwing things into the river. In their presence convincing people becomes bit tough. This practice needs to be discouraged as in the ultimate analysis while this may be seen as being an opportunistic income for the family, it turns the children into kind of beggars and discourages them from attending nearby schools where at least some of them are enrolled.
There are well-equipped gangs who occasionally damage the fence.
Expert divers living under and around the bridge despite obvious ill effects from the polluted waters on their health are least bothered and primarily interested in the collection of valuable metal pieces and coins thrown into the river.
It was disheartening to note even the MCD staff pushing the swept material from the bridge down into the river through the cracks in the pavements on the bridge.
Following is the estimate of the over-all collection from the vigil. It may be noted that this is just from a month long vigil and from a single bridge over the river. This can be safely multiplied by a factor of 4 to factor in the impact on the river from at least 4 other high use bridges (Wazirabad, Gita Colony, ITO, DND) in the city.
Estimate of collected waste over the month
Items No. of Sacks Amount
Polybags 22 180 kg
Paper 18 220 kg
Cloth 7 80 kg
Glass 1 30 kg
Paintings 5 300 pieces
Idols 10 250 pieces
Earthen Pots 500 kg
Organic waste 50 1000 kg
For people used to observing such activities as nothing more than a one off event, it came as quite a surprise to see the volunteers of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan at it day after day.
Educational placards worn by volunteers on their person were found to be far more effective as an outreach mode than mere placards hung on the fence.
Quite a number of people advised us to work on ‘fixing’ the drains falling into the river and polluting it.
As an experiment, it was quite a successful effort and can be easily replicated by any other interested agency including an NGO in Delhi or in any other place where such misuse of bridges is noticed.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
a) It is suggested that MCD may like to take up such an activity (regular vigil using volunteers) over all the bridges in the city for at least a period of couple of months at a stretch so that people get used to depositing their puja left overs at designated sites at the beginning of the bridge or at any other suitable location close to the bridge.
b) It is well known that MCD has resources under the outreach component of Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) as well as a number of NGOs associated with it for the replication of this effort, if found useful.
c) In any case, MCD is duty bound under a Delhi High Court order from 2006, to create suitable locations close to the river where the puja left overs could be safely deposited without further polluting the river.
d) There needs to be a law to discourage people from dumping non religious material into the river.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
There have been a large number of supporters, both active and passive to our month long vigil at the HNZ Bridge.
It was a kind of dream of Sri Prabhjot Sodhi of CEE that we were trying to live out. We acknowledge his personal and his team’s support to the whole effort. The polythene collected from the vigil has been safely utilized by the solid waste management unit of CEE.
We cannot thank enough the Principal, staff and students of Ahlcon International School, Mayur Vihar; Pragati Wheel, Mayur Vihar; St Mary’s School, Safdarjung Enclave; St. Marks School, Meera Bagh; Ramjas School, Anand Parbat; DPS, NOIDA; Indraprashta International, Dwarka for actively participating in the vigil.
Sri Rohit Prakash and his friends at i-dream; Sri Pushp Jain of Nature and People; Sri Raman Khanna ji; Sri BMS Rathore of Winrock India; Sri Prabhakar of Kalpvriksha; Smt Usha Srinivasan of Development Alternatives; Sri Kuldip of Hamari Yamuna Trust; Sri Murari Baba; Ms Jolly and Ms Jossey; Sri Singh, SDO PWD; Baba/s at the Hanuman Mandir, are specially thanked for finding time and volunteering or interacting and advising us for the needful.
It was extremely encouraging for us to note when the news about the Yamuna Vigil was picked up by friends at the Blue Yamuna Trust and IDCA in the US and shared widely. Sri Ravi Singh at Agra and Sri Manoj Srivastava, at Allahabad have been quite a pillar of support to us throughout the entire campaign.
This is to also acknowledge the support received from most of our partners at the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, who wrote in encouragingly about the vigil from time to time.
Our efforts were aided financially by a grant from the Ford Foundation and a generous personal financial commitment made by Smt Madhu Bhaduri ji.
To Sudha, Bhim,Vijay, Manorama and a number of Bhim’s friends, who stood vigil day in and day out over the month we can only say THANK YOU.
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