The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) is burning the midnight oil for speedy implementation of the river regulation zone (RRZ). Environment minister Jayanti Natarajan admitted that the rules of the RRZ are in the process of being framed. She expects that once this notification is passed, a major hurdle to end the operations of land mafia grabbing thousand of acres of land along the Ganga, Yamuna, Gomti, Krishna , Cauvery and Godavari rivers (to name a few) will be halted. While the notification on the RRZ had been announced by former environment minister Jairam Ramesh, the trigger to this present round of hectic activity in pushing though the new RRZ is being attributed directly to the large tracts of land having been usurped along the Yamuna floodplains. A similar situation exists along the Hindon river in Ghaziabad. The situation is no better with the Gomti in Lucknow which water experts describe as a “dead” river. Ms Natarajan is upset over the UP state government being indifferent to cleaning up the Yamuna. The MoEF recently made an offer that the Centre shoulders 70 per cent of the cost while the remaining 30 per cent will be borne by state government but the state government cold-shouldered this offer. The MoEF is planning to send a team of officials to get a first hand appraisal of the encroachments that have taken place along the Yamuna and the Hindon. Meanwhile Manoj Misra of the NGO Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan has written to Ms Natarajan asking her to issue an ordinance on the RRZ under the Environment Protection Act 1986 declaring encroachment in the flood plain of the rivers a punishable offence.