Delhi Water Minister Parvesh Verma said on October 15 that the quality of water in the Yamuna River ahead of the Chhath festival has improved compared to last year. Citing official data on faecal coliform bacteria levels, the minister claimed that the concentration of faecal coliform bacteria at Nizamuddin had fallen significantly, from 11 lakh units per 100 millilitres last year to 7,900 units this year.
Likewise, he said that the count at Palla dropped from 920 to 600 units, at Wazirabad from 16,000 to 800, and at ITO from 35,000 to 7,000. Addressing a joint press conference with Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Verma said the Delhi Pollution Control Committee collected water samples from eight sites along the Yamuna including Palla, Wazirabad Barrage, ITO, Okhla Barrage and the Yamuna Canal on October 9 and 20.
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“They (the opposition) are baffled because our government, led by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, is doing a lot of work and women are praising the preparations being made for Chhath celebration,” Verma said. He added that water samples from ISBT showed notable improvement, with bacterial levels decreasing from 28,000 in 2024 to 8,000 this year. At Okhla, the count dropped sharply from 18 lakh to 2,700, while at Agra Canal, it fell from 22 lakh to 1,600, he claimed.
“Additionally, the government has removed 20 lakh metric tonnes of silt from key drains, improving flow and preventing pollutant build-up,” Verma noted.
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Verma accused AAP leaders, including the party’s Delhi unit president Saurabh Bhardwaj, of politicising the issue. He claimed that during AAP’s tenure, no DPCC reports on Yamuna pollution were made public.
In an X post, Bhardwaj referred to a DPCC report dated October 23, highlighting that the Yamuna’s water remained unfit for bathing and contained a dangerous level of human waste. He alleged that the Haryana government had diverted water from the Eastern Yamuna Canal for a week, warning that pollution could rise again once the diversion ended.
Responding to Bhardwaj’s claims, Verma said, “Bharadwaj selectively showed the October 9 DPCC report, but did not mention that during his tenure, locations like Asgarpur had faecal coliform levels as high as 80 lakh. Today, that same location has dropped to just 8,000 — a clear reflection of our government’s work.”
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