Plan to make seaplane land on Yamuna in next five years: BJP’s Manoj Tiwari

New Delhi: Ever imagined taking a seaplane ride on ‘clean’ Yamuna? If BJP’s plan to resurrect the Yamuna is to be believed then in five years one will witness a clean Yamuna with seaplanes landing on it. The project called "Yamunosa" by Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari will be on the lines of Sabarmati on which Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a splash of a last-day Gujarat campaign by landing on a seaplane.

“There was a time when river Sabarmati was dry. But Modi ji’s vision made it possible to resurrect the river by interlinking it and giving it its current shape,” says BJP Delhi president Manoj Tiwari. "Project Yamunosa is again BJP's vision, Modi Ji's vision for Yamuna," says the Delhi BJP president.

As part of the project, approximately 500 m wide channel will be created after dredging and the river shall be made to flow in this channel. The current width of Yamuna floodplain in Delhi goes up to several kilometers in most of the 48 km long stretch of the river in Delhi. The 22 km stretch of Yamuna between Wazirabad and Okhla is heavily polluted due to large influx of drains. For filling and maintaining the water level in the channel, a separate dam will be constructed near Agra.

No drain (about 2 dozen of them flow into it currently) will be allowed to merge into the river. These will run parallel to the river and will be treated by a single treatment plant outside Delhi. "We will also add beautiful boats and develop the bank beautifully to make Yamuna the biggest asset of Delhi," says the MP from northeast Delhi.

The highly polluted Yamuna that is often in news for its filth has had several projects initiated for its cleaning that did not meet the desired objective.

"The dam to restrict water into Yamuna will be built near Agra. The moment fresh water fills the river, all impurities will settle down at the bottom and the river will become clean again. And as we treat the drains at the treatment plant, more clean water can be added back to the river. This will not only recharge ground water but make the river clean.” Tiwari feels seaplane landing on Yamuna will become a reality in Delhi's Yamuna in five years just like Sabarmati.

River Sabarmati was once dry but was brought back to life by dredging and diverting water from Narmada.

The treatment plant drain will not just purify water but also produce electricity. Project Yamunosa takes its name from Singapore's Sentosa island resort and the party plans to unveil the project within a few weeks, says Tiwari. The AAP government had already launched a Rs 200 crore Yamuna riverfront project in December 2016. It had claimed it to be "polar opposite" of the Sabarmati project, utilising trees instead of concrete on the Yamuna banks.

The Delhi Development Authority has also recently started a limited scale four phase Yamuna riverfront development project aimed at developing parks, wetlands, cycling tracks and forested bufferarea in the flood plains.