With Chhath Puja around the corner, it is of course time to take annual note of the Yamuna’s cleanliness — when else (and why else) would you bother?

The Yamuna itself, upon its arrival into Delhi, must be full up of the sonorous slogans and empty promises. Yet the Delhi NCT (National Capital Territory) government’s efforts to mislead the public continue in full spate.

The latest innovation: instead of addressing the cause of the white foam that appears on the Yamuna’s surface every year — ‘enhancing’ images of celebrants of the festival — this year the floaters are to be masked with a new chemical.

An estimated 5 million people spend approximately 36 hours at the Yamuna ghats in Delhi throughout the Chhath festival...

So, to welcome them, the BJP govt in Delhi is spraying silicone defoaming agents, polyoxypropylene and other substances to make the river appear foam-free. While these chemicals temporarily eliminate the foam, making the surfactants settle, they do nothing to eliminate the persistent pollutants within the river, for the foam is but the visible part of the toxicity ‘iceberg’.

This is patently a step taken under immediate political and social pressure — and instead of actually cleaning the river, it adds a new source of pollutants.

For those who come for the holy dip in salutation to the sun, the river shall look clean... But is it hard to understand that spraying additional chemicals on an already pollution-laden water body is at best a quick fix, and a dangerous one at that, threatening to exacerbate the river’s crisis? The purely cosmetic measure ignores the root of the problem, and its long-term adverse effects would potentially pose a serious threat to human health — and the river’s ecosystem as well, further damaging it.

The foam seen afloat on the Yamuna in and around the capital city is primarily from excessive amounts of phosphates and other surfactants and detergents. There are also PFAs — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that are persistent organic pollutants that present health and environmental risks, having been linked to liver damage, thyroid disease, increased cholesterol and........

© National Herald