Yamuna


The Yamuna, is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganga and the longest tributary in India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a height of on the southwestern slopes of Banderpooch peaks of the Lower Himalaya in Uttarakhand, it travels a total length of and has a drainage system of, 40.2% of the entire Ganga Basin. It merges with the Ganga at Triveni Sangam, Prayagraj, which is a site of the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival held every 12 years.
It crosses several states: Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, passing by Uttarakhand and later Delhi, and meeting its tributaries on the way, including Tons, Chambal, its longest tributary which has its own large basin, followed by Sindh, the Betwa, and Ken. From Uttarakhand, the river flows into the state of Himachal Pradesh. After passing Paonta Sahib, Yamuna flows along the boundary of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and after exiting Haryana it continues to flow till it merges with the river Ganga at Sangam or Prayag in Allahbad. It helps create the highly fertile alluvial Yamuna-Ganga Doab region between itself and the Ganga in the Indo-Gangetic plain. Nearly 57 million people depend on the Yamuna's waters. With an annual flow of about 10,000 cubic billion metres and usage of 4,400 cbm, the river accounts for more than 70 percent of Delhi's water supply. Like the Ganga, the Yamuna is highly venerated in Hinduism and worshipped as the goddess Yamuna. In Hindu mythology she is the daughter of the Sun Deva, Surya, and the sister of Yama, the Deva of Death, hence also known as Yami. According to popular legends, bathing in its sacred waters frees one from the torments of death.
At the Hathni Kund Barrage, its waters are diverted into two large canals: the Western Yamuna Canal flowing towards Haryana and the Eastern Yamuna Canal towards Uttar Pradesh. Beyond that point the Yamuna is joined only by the Somb, a seasonal rivulet from Haryana, and by the highly polluted Hindon River near Noida, so that it continues only as a trickling sewage-bearing drain before joining the Chambal at Pachnada in the Etawah District of Uttar Pradesh. The water of Yamuna is of "reasonably good quality" through its length from Yamunotri in the Himalayas to Wazirabad barrage in Delhi, about ; below this, the discharge of wastewater through 15 drains between Wazirabad barrage and Okhla barrage renders the river severely polluted.
One official described the river as a "sewage drain" with biochemical oxygen demand values ranging from 14 to 28 mg/l and high coliform content. There are three main sources of pollution in the river: household and municipal disposal sites, soil erosion resulting from deforestation occurring to make way for agriculture, and resulting chemical wash-off from fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides and run-off from commercial activity and industrial sites. The Yamuna from its origin at Yamunotri to Okhla barrage is called the Upper Yamuna.

Basin

Palaeochannels

The present Sarsuti river which originates in the Shivalik hills in Himachal and Haryana border and merges with Ghaggar River near Pehowa is the palaeochannel of Yamuna. Yamuna changed its course to the east due to a shift in the slope of the earth's crust caused by plate tectonics.

Current course

The river flows southwards for about, through the Lower Himalayas and the Shivalik Hills Range. Morainic deposits are found along the steep Upper Yamuna, highlighted with geomorphic features such as interlocking spurs, steep rock benches, gorges and stream terraces. Large terraces formed over a long period of time can be seen in the lower course of the river, such as those near Naugoan. An important part of its early catchment area, totalling, lies in Himachal Pradesh. The Tons, Yamana's largest tributary, drains a large portion of the upper catchment area and holds more water than the main stream. It rises from the Hari-ki-dun valley and merges after Kalsi near Dehradun. The drainage system of the river stretches between Giri-Sutlej catchment in Himachal and Yamuna-Bhilangna catchment in Garhwal, also draining the ridge of Shimla. Kalanag is the highest point of the Yamuna basin. Other tributaries in the region are the Giri, Rishi Ganga, Kunta, Hanuman Ganga and Bata, which drain the upper catchment area of the Yamuna basin.
and Yamunanagar
From the upper catchment area, the river descends onto the plains of Doon Valley, at Dak Pathar near Dehradun. Flowing through the Dakpathar Barrage, the water is diverted into a canal for power generation. Further downstream, the Assan River joins the Yamuna at the Asan Barrage, which hosts a bird sanctuary. After passing the Sikh pilgrimage town of Paonta Sahib, the Yamuna reaches Tajewala in Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana. A dam built here in 1873 is the origin of two important canals, the Western and Eastern Yamuna Canals, which irrigate the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The Western Yamuna Canal crosses Yamuna Nagar, Karnal, Panipat and Sonipat before reaching the Haiderpur treatment plant, which contributes to Delhi's municipal water supply. The Yamuna receives wastewater from Yamuna Nagar and Panipat cities; beyond this it is replenished by seasonal streams and groundwater accrual. During the dry season, the Yamuna remains dry in many stretches between the Tajewala dam and Delhi, where it enters near the Palla barrage after traversing.
The Yamuna defines the state borders between Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and between Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. When the Yamuna reaches the Indo-Gangetic plain, it runs almost parallel to the Ganges, the two rivers creating the Ganges-Yamuna Doab region. Spread across, one-third of the alluvial plain, the region is known for its agricultural output, particularly for the cultivation of basmati rice. The plain's agriculture supports one-third of India's population.
StateCatchment area % of catchment area
Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand74,20821.5
Himachal Pradesh5,7991.6
Haryana21,2656.5
Rajasthan102,88329.8
Madhya Pradesh140,23040.6
Delhi1,4850.4

Subsequently, the Yamana flows through the states of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh] before merging with the Ganges at a sacred spot known as Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj. Pilgrims travel by boats to platforms erected in midstream to offer prayers. During the Kumbh Mela, held every 12 years, large congregations of people immerse themselves in the sacred waters of the confluence. The cities of Baghpat, Delhi, Noida, Mathura, Agra, Firozabad, Etawah, Kalpi, Hamirpur, and Prayagraj lie on its banks. At Etawah, it meets it another important tributary, Chambal, followed by a host of tributaries further down, including, Sindh, the Betwa, and Ken.

Important tributaries

Along its length, the Yamuna has many notable tributaries:
The name Yamuna seems to be derived from the Sanskrit word "yama", meaning 'twin', and it may have been applied to the river because it runs parallel to the Ganges. The Yamuna is mentioned at many places in the Rig Veda, which was composed during the Vedic period BCE, and also in the later Atharvaveda, and the Brahmanas including Aitareya Brahmana and Shatapatha Brahmana. In the Rigveda, the story of the Yamuna describes her "excessive love" for her twin, Yama, who in turn asks her to find a suitable match for herself, which she does in Krishna.
The tale is further detailed in the 16th century Sanskrit hymn, Yamunashtakam, an ode by the philosopher Vallabhacharya. Here the story of her descent to meet her beloved Krishna and to purify the world has been put into verse. The hymn also praises her for being the source of all spiritual abilities. And while the Ganges is considered an epitome of asceticism and higher knowledge and can grant Moksha or liberation, it is Yamuna, who, being a holder of infinite love and compassion, can grant freedom, even from death, the realm of her elder brother. Vallabhacharya writes that she rushes down the Kalinda Mountain, and describes her as the daughter of Kalinda, giving her the name Kalindi, the backdrop of Krishna Leela. The text also talks about her water being of the colour of Lord Krishna, which is dark. The river is referred to as Asita in some historical texts.
It is mentioned as Iomanes in the surveys of Seleucus I Nicator, an officer of Alexander the Great and one of the Diadochi, who visited India in 305 BCE. Greek traveller and geographer Megasthenes visited India sometime before 288 BCE and mentioned the river in his Indica, where he described the region around it as the land of Surasena. In Mahabharata, the Pandava capital of Indraprastha was situated on the banks of Yamuna, considered to be the site of modern Delhi.
Geological evidence indicates that in the distant past the Yamuna was a tributary of the Ghaggar River. It later changed its course eastward, becoming a tributary of the Ganges. While some have argued that this was due to a tectonic event, and may have led to the Sarasvati River drying up, the end of many Harappan civilisation settlements, and creation of the Thar desert, recent geological research suggests that the diversion of the Yamuna to the Ganges may have occurred during the Pleistocene, and thus could not be connected to the decline of the Harappan civilisation in the region.
Most of the great empires which ruled over a majority of India were based in the highly fertile Ganges–Yamuna basin, including the Magadha, Maurya Empire, Shunga Empire, Kushan Empire, and Gupta Empire, and many had their capitals here, in cities like Pataliputra or Mathura. These rivers were revered throughout these kingdoms that flourished on their banks; since the period of Chandragupta II, statues both the Ganges and Yamuna became common throughout the Gupta Empire. Further to the South, images of the Ganges and Yamuna are found amidst shrines of the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, and on their royal seals; prior to them, the Chola Empire also added the river into their architectural motifs. The Three River Goddess shrine, next to the Kailash rock-cut Temple at Ellora, shows the Ganges flanked by the Yamuna and Saraswati.

Religious significance

The goddess of the river, also known as Yami, is the sister of Yama, the god of death, and the daughter of Surya, the Sun god, and his wife Saranyu.
The river Yamuna is connected to the religious beliefs surrounding Krishna and various stories of the two are found in Hindu religious texts, especially the Puranas. One such story is Kaliya Daman about the subduing of Kaliya, a Nāga which had inhabited the river and terrorised the people of Braja. Yamuna as Kalindi is also considered as a consort of Krishna.
Yamuna holds a very important position in Pushti Marga, a large sect of Hinduism based on the ShuddhAdvaita, in which Krishna is the main deity, propagated by Vallabhacharya.
is situated on the banks of river Yamuna.

Management

The stretch of the river from its origin at Yamunotri to Okhla barrage in Delhi is called "Upper Yamuna". A Memorandum of Understanding was signed amongst the five basin states on 12 May 1994 for sharing of its waters. This led to the formation of Upper Yamuna River Board under India's Ministry of Water Resources, whose primary functions are: regulation of the available flows amongst the beneficiary states and monitoring the return flows; monitoring conservation and upgrading the quality of surface and groundwater; maintaining hydro-meteorological data for the basin; overviewing plans for watershed management; and monitoring and reviewing the progress of all projects up to and including Okhla barrage.
Flood forecasting systems are established at Poanta Sahib, where Tons, Pawar and Giri tributaries meet. The river take 60 hours to travel from Tajewala to Delhi, thus allowing a two-day advance flood warning period. The Central Water Commission started flood-forecasting services in 1958 with its first forecasting station on Yamuna at Delhi Railway Bridge.

Barrages

Yamuna has the following six functional barrages, from north-west to southeast:
Use of the Yamuna's waters for irrigation in the Indo-Gangetic Plains is enhanced by its many canals, some dating to the 14th century Tughlaq dynasty, which built the Nahr-i-Bahisht parallel to the river. The Nahr-i-Bahisht was restored and extended by the Mughals in the first half of the 17th century, by engineer Ali Mardan Khan, starting from Benawas where the river enters the plains and terminating near the Mughal capital of Shahjahanabad, the present city of Delhi.

Eastern Yamuna Canal

As the Yamuna enters the Northern Plains near Dakpathar at an elevation of, the Eastern Yamuna Canal commences at the Dakpathar Barrage and pauses at the Asan and Hathnikund Barrages before continuing south.

Western Yamuna Canal

The Western Yamuna Canal was built in 1335 CE by Firuz Shah Tughlaq. Excessive silting caused it to stop flowing, when the British Raj undertook a three-year renovation in 1817 by Bengal Engineer Group. The Tajewala Barrage dam was built in 1832–33 to regulate the flow of water, and was replaced by the modern Hathni Kund Barrage in 1999.
The main canal is long. When including its branches and many major and minor irrigation channels, it has a total length of The WYC begins at the Hathni Kund Barrage about from Dakpathar and south of Doon Valley. The canals irrigate vast tracts of land in the region in Ambala, Karnal, Sonepat, Rohtak, Jind, Hisar and Bhiwani districts.
The major branch canals are:
A proposed heavy freight canal, the Sutlej–Yamuna Link, is being built westwards from near the Yamuna's headwaters through the Punjab region near an ancient caravan route and highlands pass to the navigable parts of the Sutlej–Indus watershed. This will connect the Ganges, which flows to the east coast of the subcontinent, with points west. When completed, the SYL will allow shipping from India's east coast to the west coast and the Arabian sea, shortening important commercial links for north-central India's large population. The canal starts near Delhi, and is designed to transfer Haryana's share of from the Indus Basin.

Transportation

Yamuna is one of the National Waterways of India, designated as NW110 in Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Some of its sections are being developed for navigation:
The Yamuna from the source to its culmination in Ganges is a habitat for fish for approximately
1300 km stretch and supports a rich diversity of species. Fish from the family Cyprinidae dominate the variety of fish species found in the river. This includes Indian carp and also invasive species from the family.In a study, 93 species of fish were found in the river including catfish. Species of non-native Tilapia have become established in the river.They have been implicated in the decline of the Ghariyal population in the river Large turtles used to be a common sight on the river a few decades ago but they have mostly disappeared.

Pollution

In 1909, the waters of the Yamuna were distinguishable as clear blue, when compared to the silt-laden yellow of the Ganges. However, due to high-density population growth and rapid industrialisation, Yamuna has become one of the most polluted rivers in India, and indeed in the world.The Yamuna is particularly polluted downstream of New Delhi, the capital of India, which dumps about 58% of its waste into the river. A recent study shows that there is 100% urban metabolism of River Yamuna as it passes through the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The most pollution comes from Wazirabad, from where Yamuna enters Delhi

Causes

The river receives 800 million liters of largely untreated sewage and additional 44 million liters of industrial effluents each day. Only 35 percent of the sewage released into the river are believed to be treated.
To address river pollution, measures have been taken by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 12 towns of Haryana, 8 towns of Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi, under the Yamuna Action Plan which has been implemented since 1993 by the MoEF's National River Conservation Directorate. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation is participating in the YAP in 15 of the towns with soft loan assistance of 17.773 billion Japanese yen while the government of India is providing the funds for the remaining 6 towns. In 2007, the Indian government's plans to repair sewage lines were predicted to improve the water quality of the river 90% by the year 2010.
Under the YAP- III scheme, a new sewage treatment plant is being built at Okhla, claimed to be the largest such facility in India by the Delhi Jal Board. The plant is predicted to be able to treat 124 million gallons of wastewater per day, amounting to a daily removal of 41,200 kg of organic pollutants as well as 61,600 kg of solids.
The last barrage across the Yamuna river is the Mathura barrage at Gokul for supply of drinking water to that city. Downstream of this barrage, many pumping stations are constructed to feed the river water for irrigation needs. These pumping stations are near Pateora Danda, Samgara, Ainjhi, Bilas Khadar, and Samari. Depletion of the base flows available in the river during the non-monsoon months by these pump houses is exacerbating river pollution from Mathura to Prayagraj in the absence of adequate fresh water to dilute the polluted drainage from habitations and industries.
In 2009, the Union government announced to the Lok Sabha, the failure of the Ganga Action Plan and the YAP, saying that "rivers Ganga and Yamuna are no cleaner now than two decades ago" despite spending over 1,700 crore to control pollution. According to a Centre for Science and Environment official, these plans adopted the Thames model, based on a centralised sewage treatment system. This meant that a huge sum of money and a 24-hour power supply were needed to manage the treatment plants, while only an 8-hour power supply was available, contributing to the failure.
In August 2009, the Delhi Jal Board initiated its plan for resuscitating the Yamuna's stretch in Delhi by constructing interceptor sewers, at the cost of about 1,800 crore.

Conservation zone

On 25 April 2014, the National Green Tribunal Act recommended the government to declare a stretch of the Yamuna in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh as a conservation zone. A report prepared by the Ministry of Environment and Forests panel was submitted to the NGA on the same day. Under the Yamuna Action Plan, pollution cleanup of Yamuna was conducted in line with the biological oxygen demand of Yamuna. Under these two phases, 286 schemes, including 39 sewage treatment plants, were completed in 21 towns of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana at a cost of 1,453.17 crore. Sewage treatment capacity of 767.25 million litres per day was created by these efforts.
The High Court in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand ordered in March 2017 that the Ganges and its main tributary, the Yamuna, be assigned the status of legal entities. The rivers would gain “all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person.” This decision meant that polluting or damaging the rivers is equivalent to harming a person. The court cited the example of the New Zealand Whanganui River, which was also declared to possess full rights of a legal person.
This development of environmental personhood has been met with scepticism as merely announcing that the Ganges and Yamuna are living entities will not save them from significant, ongoing pollution.

Gallery

Quotes on Yamuna