NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday inaugurated and laid foundation stones for 43 Delhi Jal Board (DJB) water and sewerage projects worth Rs 8,941.22 crore, declaring that the Yamuna would be cleaned by May 2029 and that the government would return before the people with the task completed.
The announcements were made at an event in Shyam Vihar in the Dwarka–Najafgarh belt, where Shah said the projects marked a decisive break from decades of neglect of the river.
Of the 43 projects, 10 worth Rs 2,827.11 crore were inaugurated, while foundation stones were laid for the remaining 33, together worth Rs 6,114.11 crore. The projects serve two linked goals: stopping untreated sewage from reaching the Yamuna through the city's drains, and expanding the capital's treated drinking water capacity.
Addressing the gathering, Shah said: "Before May 2029, we will purify the Yamuna and come before you. This is our resolve." The pledge was the most categorical timeline set for the river's clean-up in recent years, and it was immediately read in political circles as a promise the government will have to stand by through the remainder of its tenure.
Shah described the projects as "like the backbone of cleaning the Yamuna", and said the Centre, the Delhi government, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana were "four engines" working together for the river. The reference underscored the fact that the Yamuna's condition in Delhi is shaped not only by the capital's sewage but also by flows and pollution loads from neighbouring states.
The flagship project among those inaugurated is the 124 million gallons per day (MGD) sewage treatment plant at Okhla, built at a cost of Rs 1,161 crore. Touted as Delhi's biggest sewage treatment plant, the facility is a joint venture between the National Mission for Clean Ganga and the Delhi Jal Board. It was sanctioned in 2017 under the Yamuna Action Plan-III, and its commissioning marks a significant milestone in a programme that has moved slowly since its inception.
Also in the package is a 477 million litres per day (MLD) water treatment plant at Chandrawal, costing Rs 298.3 crore, which will augment treated drinking water supply to the city, and a 2 MGD water recycling plant at Bawana aimed at reusing treated wastewater. Upgrades to the existing sewage treatment plants at Rithala and Kondli were also part of Thursday's announcements.
A major thrust of the programme is directed at outer Delhi. Twenty-nine decentralised sewage treatment plants and pumping stations, worth Rs 3,113.67 crore, will come up in areas that have historically lacked sewerage altogether. The facilities are expected to cover 358 unauthorised colonies and 113 villages, bringing an estimated 36.29 lakh residents into the formal sewage treatment fold — one of the largest single extensions of sewerage coverage the city has seen.
To carry sewage to these plants, 1,034 km of new sewer network will be laid at a cost of Rs 1,691 crore, while a 4.5-km Mundka trunk drain, costing Rs 225.02 crore, will help channel wastewater away from the river. In addition, eight existing sewage treatment plants will be upgraded at a cost of Rs 1,041 crore, raising their combined capacity from 78.2 MGD to 140.8 MGD and benefiting an estimated 78.5 lakh people.
Taken together, the projects are expected to benefit around 1.5 crore people, officials said, and the works are targeted for completion within two to two-and-a-half years. The stated end goal is unambiguous: no untreated wastewater from Delhi should reach the Yamuna through the city's drains.
Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, who was present at the event, described the approach as scientific and systematic. She said the plan rests on intercepting drains that carry sewage into the river, upgrading existing STPs and constructing new ones, laying fresh sewer lines, connecting every household to the sewer network, and in turn connecting every sewer line to a treatment plant — so that nothing untreated enters the Yamuna.
Also present at the ceremony were Lieutenant-Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu, PWD/Water Minister Parvesh Sahib Singh, and Union Minister of State Harsh Malhotra, signalling that the clean-up is being treated as a shared project between the Centre and the city administration rather than a departmental routine.
Shah used the occasion to attack the previous Congress and Aam Aadmi Party governments, accusing them of allowing sewage to flow into the Yamuna unchecked over the last 30 years. He also claimed that around 2,000 tonnes of cow dung from dairies was being dumped into the river every day — a charge that underlined how the BJP intends to frame the river's condition as a legacy of misrule rather than a technical failure.
The Yamuna's pollution is among India's oldest and most intractable urban environmental problems. Successive governments have announced a series of Yamuna Action Plans, beginning in the early 1990s, followed by later phases and, more recently, works sanctioned under the National Mission for Clean Ganga. Each plan brought new sewage treatment capacity on paper, but the river's condition in Delhi barely improved.
The reasons are well documented in broad terms: Delhi's sewage generation has consistently outpaced its treatment capacity; large parts of the city — particularly unauthorised colonies, villages and resettlement pockets — grew faster than the sewer network; and a web of open drains carries a mix of sewage, industrial effluent and solid waste into the river.
Past pledges, including several by earlier city governments promising a clean Yamuna within a few years, came and went without the promised transformation.
That history is what makes the May 2029 deadline significant — and also what makes it a gamble. Unlike earlier pledges, which were often issued without detailed project back-ups, Thursday's deadline was attached to a specific, costed list of 43 projects with named capacities and locations. The government has effectively converted a political promise into a project-management target, which makes progress — or the lack of it — measurable over the next two to three years.
The timing of the deadline is impossible to separate from politics. Delhi is now under a BJP government, and May 2029 coincides with the next Lok Sabha elections. By setting the clean-up deadline just ahead of the general election, the party has tied the river's condition to its electoral record — a promise that will be held against it if the water does not visibly improve.
There is also an inter-state dimension that Delhi alone cannot resolve. The Yamuna enters Delhi from Haryana and leaves it for Uttar Pradesh, and pollution loads, water-sharing arrangements and the river's lean-season flow all lie partly outside the capital's control. Shah's "four engines" formulation appeared to acknowledge this, suggesting the Centre will coordinate the effort across state boundaries.
For the city's residents, the more immediate promise lies in the details: household sewer connections in colonies that never had them, upgraded plants in established neighbourhoods, and a recycling push at Bawana that points to the reuse of treated wastewater. If the two-to-two-and-a-half-year construction timeline holds, the first tangible results — fewer drains pouring raw sewage into the river — could begin to show well before the 2029 deadline.
What happens next will be a test of execution. The projects must now move from foundation stones to functioning plants: land, contractors, inter-agency clearances and steady funding will all be needed, and the public will be watching whether the drains that feed the river actually run clearer. The government has set the bar publicly and in Shah's words; May 2029 is the date by which it will be judged.
(Reporting based on The Hindu and The Indian Express.)