Environmental engineers had lost all hopes of cleansing the water in the 48-kilometre stretch of the Yamuna snaking through Delhi.The Yamuna is fated to be an open sewer sooner or later. And this catastrophe may befall us in 30 years’ time, according to environmental engineers who have been watching the fast-changing water quality profile of the river. This frightening forecast is made on the assumption that the graph of pollution maintains its rising trend in the next three decades. Environmental engineers have lost all hopes of cleansing the water in the 48-kilometre stretch of the Yamuna snaking through Delhi. This is the worst affected part of the river. The city consumes 12 lakh kilolitres of water every day and generates 9,60,000 kilolitres of waste water.
Fair-price shops
Two thousand one hundred and fifty government fair price shops started functioning in the Capital. The shops, run by the Delhi Administration, sell items of mass consumption such as tea, match boxes, soda ash and exercise books. From next week, toilet soaps will be available and it is proposed that in the near future the shops will also deal in vegetable oils. The Chief Executive Councilor, K N Sahani, launched the new production-cum-distribution scheme at a function at Raghubir Nagar re-settlement colony. Sahani said the administration’s two-year-old dream about ensuring supply of essential goods to the common man had been partially fulfilled. He said that had Delhi been a full-fledged state, this would have happened much earlier.
Plan pruning
The Plan may have to be cut and the restructuring of wages postponed if the rise in prices and inflation do not abate. This is apparent from the discussions in the Planning Commission and the deliberations of a Cabinet sub-committee which held its meeting a few days ago. The Planning Commission makes no secret of the fact that it has already touched the bottom of the barrel and that it finds no purpose in scraping it for more resources.
