YJA - MOEF must account for its share of responsibility for yesterday's (15 Nov 10) building collapse in east Delh (16 Nov. 2010)

To,

Sri Jairam Ramesh,

Hon'ble Union Minister of State (Independent Charge)

Ministry of Environment and Forest,

MOEFNew Delhi

Dear Sir,

Greetings from Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan.

You may be aware about the tragic incidence with huge loss of life resulting from the collapse of a high rise (5 floored) building in the Lalita Park area of east Delhi. This colony is located in low lying area of the river flood plain just across the East Marginal Bund (also called as Yamuna Pushta).

This tragic incidence proves in the most unfortunate manner a point and serves as reminder to MOEF of its sovereign responsibility still to be shouldered. This incidence also puts a question mark on the safety of other impugned structures like the CWG Village and the DMRC residential high rise standing in the river bed, the structures that would have never come up at such risky sites if the MOEF had taken timely actions.

The point that this unfortunate incidence makes is that the natural character of a river's flood plain cannot be altered by a mere embankment as was regretfully held in 2009 by the Hon'ble SC in its own wisdom in the Yamuna case. And it is the sub surface aquifers, extending to Kms in some cases that play a critical role in the transmission of flood waters to replenish the ground water over large areas. This incidence also re-emphasises though in a tragic manner the fact that the entire east Delhi and NOIDA (UP) are part of the river's flood plains.

This tragic incidence also brings back in to focus the urgent need on the part of the MOEF to enact the long pending River Regulation Zone (RRZ) notification under the EPA 1986 on the lines of the CRZ notification, so that a river and its flood plains get a statutory definition/protection and unwitting people little reason to invite trouble onto themselves.

Sir, we are just back from a visit to areas along the river in the Agra area and it is a real need of the hour in the light of the flood waters of river Yamuna entering the city of Mathura and Agra, for the MOEF to enact the RRZ as a win-win action both for the river as well as the safety of unwitting people who get taken in by the tall claims of the land and real estate mafia which is all out to grab, build and sell the river bed/flood plain as a real estate in absence of the river land's statutory protection. The planned 'development' on either side of the so called Yamuna Expressway and the highly risky high rises coming up in the river bed in NOIDA, Greater NOIDA and Faridabad areas are classic example of such violation of the sanctity of the river's flood plains.

Sir, kindly recall that we had tried to present a similar case for the enactment of RRZ to your good self once before too in the context of the flooding of areas in Ambala and Moradabad in the month of August/Sep 2010.

We hope that MOEF would at least now rise to the occasion and secure our rivers and the lives and property of people, as well.

Warm regards,

manoj misra

Convener

Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan