Agra, Oct 2 (IANS) Scores of green and river activists celebrated Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary early on Saturday by offering shram daan, to clean the Yamuna river bank.

Members of Namami Gange, River Connect Campaign, Vrikshita, Nehru Yuva Kendra, NCC, joined the clean up programme.

Namami Gange local convener Payal Singh Rana said the condition of pollution in river Yamuna was serious.

River Connect Campaigner Pandit Jugal Kishore said a barrage downstream of the Taj Mahal was hanging fire for decades. The Yogi government should urgently take up the project.

"Right now the Yamuna is flowing full, but after a few weeks, the scene would be pathetically different when heaps of pollutants would again become ubiquitously visible, fouling the ambience behind the Taj Mahal," environmentalist Devashish Bhattacharya said.

River Yamuna, the life line of the city, flows right in the middle of the city, with a fairly long river front dotted by half a dozen grand Mughal monuments. Heritage conservationists have been constantly warning that the health of these monuments was dependent on the health of the river Yamuna which nurtures and sustains these precious structures, said Surendra Sharma, president of the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society.

--IANS

bk/skp/

MENAFN02102021000231011071ID1102903364