NEW DELHI: The government is to undertake a comprehensive study to assess the minimum required environmental flow of the Yamuna river following a report that the 10 cusecs released at Hathanikund is too little to keep the river alive.

 

The monitoring committee had, in its report earlier, said that the Yamuna was “fighting to stay alive” and it would not be possible to rejuvenate it unless a minimum environmental flow was provided as it was “virtually reduced to a trickle and remains dry in some stretches for almost nine months of the year”.
Members of the National Mission for Clean Ganga launched by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation in 2014 are in talks with the National Institute of Hydrology to carry out the e-flow study, the officials said.

E-flow is a regime of flow in a river that mimics the natural pattern and refers to the quality, quantity and timing of water flows required to maintain the functions, processes and resilience of aquatic ecosystems that provide goods and services to people.

DP Mathuria, Executive Director at the National Mission for Clean Ganga, in a letter to the National Institute of Hydrology, asked it to ascertain the amount of flow and to maintain the longitudinal integrity of the Yamuna in the stretch downstream of Hathanikund up to Agra, as it is necessary to have a comprehensive study involving supply and demand of water.