4 yrs after HC order, only one immersion site ready (Times of India 17 October 2010)

NEW DELHI: In 2006, Delhi high court ordered Delhi government to construct 13 enclosures for immersions so that the Yamuna would be spared from pollution. In 2010, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) still have not been able to make up their mind whether work has to be carried out by them or not. In response to an RTI query, the two agencies passed on the buck to each other and finally said the issue did not pertain to Yamuna Action Plan (YAP). Of the 13 enclosures that were to be prepared, only one has been readied so far. Vinod Jain of NGO Tapas, on whose writ petition the court order had been issued, has sent a legal notice to the environment department asking them to take immediate action or else he would proceed to the court to file a contempt petition against the concerned parties. ''The HC order was passed under the Delhi Plastic Bags Act 2000 to ensure that the river would not get polluted each festival season when hundreds of tonnes of religious material and thousands of idols would be immersed into the river. Dusshera and Durga Puja have come by yet again and nothing is being done. It is very surprising that till date the government has sat over the issue and done precious little. It appears that the government is not at all sincere in implementing the Act,'' said Jain. According to officials in the environment department, it had been decided that while DDA would finance the project, MCD would be in charge of construction and maintenance. ''We have been following up the matter with them for really long but we have had no response from them. The agencies also then got busy with the Commonwealth Games so all work was held up. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh also issued basic rules that were to be followed during idol immersion and we have conveyed those to all puja committees,'' said an official. Jain recently filed an RTI application with the two agencies to find out the status of the enclosures. While DDA responded by saying it had no information on the project and that it was transferring the query to MCD, the civic body's only defence was that the questions did not pertain to YAP-II. ''MCD did not have any reply to the totally straightforward questions that I had asked. The three questions in my application were whether the 13 enclosures would be ready in time for the puja season, where the enclosures were coming up and if there were plans to construct any more. What sort of a reply is ''This information does not pertain to YAP-II'. The departments have been sitting on a court directive for four years in clear violation of orders. Neither of them seem to have,'' said Jain. MCD had earlier claimed that after the construction of one enclosure, it had to stop work since DDA was supposed to give it land for the rest.