The Yamuna riverfront will be the “polar opposite” to the one along Sabarmati river banks in Ahmedabad, the Delhi government said on Tuesday, while launching a Rs 200-crore project here in this regard.

The ambitious plan, which was in cold storage for nearly three years, was green flagged at the “Yamuna Aarti” event at Sonia Ghat in presence of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the entire AAP Cabinet.

At the event, Mr Kejriwal stuck up the familiar refrain that the BJP-run Centre and lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung were trying to create developmental barriers in the national capital. At last year’s aarti, he had promised to clean and revive the heavily-polluted river in five years.

The AAP government initiated the event along the lines of Varanasi’s famed Ganga Aarti. A medley of cultural performances and inter-faith devotional prayers took place on the occasion, which had a substantial audience.

Delhi water minister Kapil Mishra, who made announcement, said the project, which aims to beautify the riverfront, will come up in the next one-and-a-half-years with eco-friendly materials being its construction base. “The Sabarmati riverfront has been laid out with concrete. This is not the case with our project. We are planning to plant trees across the entire stretch of the riverfront,” he said.