Delhi Has Unilaterally Allowed A Slew Of Constructions, Ignoring Environmental Concerns
Neha Lalchandani | TNN
New Delhi: First came the Commonwealth Games Village on the Yamuna floodplain, then the facilities at Siri Fort at the cost of a few hundred trees, then the stop-gap Millennium bus depot, again on the Yamuna bed. While concerns voiced by environmental activists and experts were ignored in the first two cases, the government said the bus depot would be dismantled after the two weeks of the Games.
Five months on, the bus depot is a reinforced, cement-and-steel facility taking the place of the temporary structures that were to come up. The government has refused to move the depot or bring it down. Its reason: Rs 80 lakh have been spent on development of the land and the depot is essential for encouragement of mass public transport in the city.
Environmentalists challenged the construction of the depot on grounds that it had been built on the river bed which, under the master plan, is a zone where only green development is permitted. Delhi’s lieutenant-governor too had passed a moratorium in 2008, putting an end to all construction on the river bed.
Weeks after publicly claiming that the government had done no wrong, the Delhi Transport Commission sent a request for change in land use to Delhi Development Authority. End of matter as far as environmental issues are concerned.
“The government’s justification is absurd to say the least. Spending money on an illegal project does not make it legal. And once the structure is already in place, is it not a mockery of laws when DTC applies for change in land use,” said Vinod Jain of NGO Tapas which filed a PIL on the project.
Delhi, like several other urban centres, is a largely unplanned city. Much of its expansion in the recent past has come at the cost of massive violations, whether of civic norms or of environmental laws. It doesn’t help if on the one hand the government takes up large scale demolition of the very buildings that it permitted clandestinely to come up while on the other, it openly twists its own rules to carry out construction meant for its own benefit or to pander to political whims.
KT Ravindran, chairman of Delhi Urban Arts Commission, says that it is largely government agencies that are flouting laws of which Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi are the biggest culprits. DUAC was formed by an act of Parliament and its clearance is mandatory for all building projects that pertain to public use, engineering works like road expansion work and those that impact environment and heritage. The commission is more often than not viewed as a hindrance to development in the city and often is completely bypassed when one is applying for building sanctions.
“Ideally, the government should not sanction funds till a project has received all required clearances. DUAC’s is a statutory clearance and technically, one cannot start construction unless the commission has approved the plans. If we find violations, we can send a ‘stop construction’ order to the local body but if violations are being committed by the civic agencies themselves, then there is not much else we can do,” said Ravindran.
The Commonwealth Games was yet another excuse for the government to invest heavily in infrastructure for which all rules were put aside. In Siri Fort, while barren land right next to where the stadia have come up was available, a possible lengthy procedure to acquire it deterred DDA from even trying to look at alternatives.
Says NGO Tapas, “At one level, Delhi claims to be a highly environmentally conscious city but on the other hand, there are massive violations of environment norms by the government itself. Look at the Vasant Kunj malls that came up on Ridge land. The government was fully aware of the violations being carried out and did nothing. Just because they were constructed by the time the court got around to examining the matter, they were fined a measly Rs 1 lakh. The projects were worth crores and a lakh would not have even made the developers blink while it led to severe ecological crisis for the Ridge.”
DUAC OPPOSES, GOVT EXECUTES
DTC bus depot | Meant to be a temporary construction for the duration of the Commonwealth Games. Govt now refuses to pull it down, having spent Rs 80 lakh on depot facilities
Environmentalists say construction on the Yamuna floodplain was not allowed even in the master plan
Metro quarters | Being built on the riverbed cleared for operational use, not residential. DMRC’s explanation is that the quarters are “operational” as operations-related personnel will stay there
MCD coffee shops-cum-toilets
Neither did the project have DUAC clearance nor did it get approval of residents where some 30 of these were planned. One on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg pulled down while others are locked. Structures allegedly for CWG were occupying parking place and green areas in colonies
MCD’s new civic centre
Rs 700-cr project never applied for DUAC clearance before commencing work and needs a certificate from the commission before it can make the building operational
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