Yamuna activists to protest in Indian capital

Green activists plan to stage protests in the Indian capital Feb 1 to demand that the Narendra Modi government act fast to clean up the highly polluted Yamuna river.

The activists say that Modi government has given a lot of assurances but has failed to clean up the Yamuna despite being in office around eight months.

According to them, the ghats in Mathura and Vrindavan, used by millions of pilgrims, stink.

"They are not bothered about the Yamuna, the lifeline of cities down the line from Haryana to Agra," lamented Vrindavan's Yamuna activist Madhu Mangal Shukla.

On Feb 1, thousands of activists and devotees will demonstrate in New Delhi to draw the government's attention to the neglect of the Yamuna.

The protest will be led by Swami Vigyanacharya, who has been campaigning for saving the Yamuna in the Braj area.

The national president of the Yamuna Rakshak Dal, Jai Krishan Das, told IANS that the polluted Yamuna was a threat to the lives of millions living downstream of Delhi.

The Yamuna, flowing through Mathura, Vrindavan and Agra, has been reduced to a sewer canal these days, choked with piles of accumulated garbage and industrial effluents.

The pollutants are mostly discharged by industrial clusters upstream of Vrindavan, Delhi and Haryana.