A crore spent on glitzy event to 'save' Hindon, activists fret (Times of India 07 March 2011)

NEW DELHI: The Ghaziabad authorities are believed to be spending crores on an event to raise awareness for cleaning river Hindon, a tributary of Yamuna. The district administration is holding a week-long cultural event on the bank of the river which has become a sewage canal in recent years.
According to sources, the total expense on this programme could go up to Rs 1.5 crore and several builders and developers are sponsoring the event which started on March 4 and will continue till Thursday. Some of the key performers in this "awareness" campaign include Kumar Sanu, Pankaj Udhas, Daler Mehndi besides several other star singers from the small screen.
"Hindon has become a drain due to huge discharge of sewage and effluents from residential colonies and industries. We organized the programme to create some awareness among people on how we can contribute to check the river pollution," said a senior official of the district administration.
But residents and environment activists are not happy with the administration's move. "To clean the river you need to install effluent treatment plants (ETP) to treat pollutants released from industries and residential areas. How can the cultural programme help in this cause?" asked Sushil Raghav, who has also filed an RTI on this issue with the district administration.
District magistrate Hirdesh Kumar, who is supposed to have planned this cultural event to raise awareness about Hindon, did not respond to calls. In reply to an SMS he said he would comment later. Locals said that such an event would not help salvage the river and added that the administration could have spent this money on organizing river-cleaning activities. In fact, former DM Ajay Shankar Pandey had got the 1.5-km stretch of river cleaned in 2009-10 before he was transferred. The administration had also put embankment along this stretch besides installing iron grills on the bridge to prevent people from throwing waste into the river.
All this had cost the administration just Rs 45 lakh. "A river sanitation force was also set up for this purpose. About 4-5 boats were deployed to clear the weeds," said a government official.
Hindon river originates in the Saharanpur district of UP from upper Shivalik. It flows between Ganges and Yamuna rivers, for 400km through Muzaffarnagar district, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida before joining the Yamuna just outside Delhi