As the World Environment Day would be celebrated on Thursday, the Yamuna river would project a grim picture about increasing pollution level and dip in the water quality. "The Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) load, an important indicator of pollution level has increased by 13 per cent over last year," Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has said in its latest 2007 report.

With World Environment Day being celebrated on Thursday, the Yamuna river today projects a grim picture of increasing pollution levels. "The Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) load, an important indicator of pollution levels, has increased by 13 per cent over last year,' Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has said in its latest report. This rise might be because of increase in generation of BOD load in the city or decrease in treatment efficiency of sewage treatment plants (STPs).

Environmentalist and Mhadei Bachao Abhiyan Vice President Nandkumar Kamat is at a loss of words to explain the Government's inefficiency to check whether water supplied in people's homes was actually safe for drinking. Addressing a press conference on the eve of World Environment Day that falls tomorrow (June 5), Kamat lamented, "What we are drinking is actually poison water. There are no quality checks and the Government has not bothered to address the problem in spite of reminders and individual representations.'

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Ten of the largest rivers in the world are dying. Amongst these are the Ganga, Indus, Nile, Yangtze, Mekong and Danube that are the lifeline of millions of people. These rivers are not merely water sources but repositories of history, myths and cultural memories. And, the greatest threat to these and many other rivers is industrial pollution apart from natural sewage channels.

21 drains of Delhi, one from Uttar Pradesh carry untreated effluent into the river'

The Union Government's plan to construct a heliport near the sprawling new Akshardham Temple on the Yamuna floodplains in the Capital has set off a wave of concern among activists fighting to save the grand old river. Reacting to the Central Government's statement that a suitable location was being sought near the Akshardham Temple for construction of the heliport, members of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan have written to Delhi's Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna to draw attention to the destruction of natural resource that the proposed construction would cause.

Trying Hard: India's largest private sector company is making a late but concerted entry into CSR (Pic By Subhabrata Das)