Selling river environs (The Pioneer 03 June 2011)

Real estate boom spurred by PPP is concretising river environs
Things that people are wont to take for granted — natural environs, water, air, heritage — are being corroded under the onslaught of predatory commerce. The real estate boom, spurred by the public-private partnership model, has been marked by concretisation of green belts, fertile farmland, river environs and protected forests. While Supreme Court intervention has temporarily put a stop to uncurbed mining in the Aravallis, though it is reported to continue clandestinely, and acknowledged conservationists’ plea that the Delhi ridge be protected, environmental rules are bent by Government agencies to oblige builders and entrepreneurs, and for ‘official’ purposes.

Nothing illustrates violations of the apex court judgement of 1996 with regard to the ridge better than the commercial encroachments in the Vasant Kunj area, spread over 92 hectares: A shopping mall, university, a Maruti showroom, the ONGC building and a publishing house. A further 330 hectares has been allotted for military establishments, and 223 hectares for developing the Aravalli Biodiversity Park. The last, an eco venture, and so, acceptable, owes to the efforts of Citizens for Preservation of Quarries and Lakes Wilderness. This body filed a PIL against the International Hotels Complex Project, planned on the ridge. Other conservationists supported the campaign. Finally, the project to build 13 luxury hotels was scrapped, and the earmarked 223 hectares of forest area in Vasant Vihar — Mahipalpur region allocated for the Biodiversity Park.

The Yamuna environs have similarly been encroached upon by Government agencies. The Delhi Development Authority, in cases filed by conservationists against the location of the Commonwealth Games Village on the Yamuna bed and floodplains, had committed to the Delhi High Court that after constructing the games village and metro residential flats, river environs would not be concretised. But, the Delhi Government now refuses to shift out the millennium bus depot, built as a temporary games-related amenity. About 60 acres on the Yamuna floodplains have thus been grabbed, part of it for use by private bus operators. NGOs such as Tapas and Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan have been trying hard to get the land vacated by the DTC, pointing out that the bus depot is not shown as part of designated land use in Delhi Master Plan 2021. The Lieutenant Governor, authorised to take decisions relating to land use, is aware of the lapse.

Activist Vinod Jain of Tapas points out that the Master Plan states that the Yamuna and ridge are Delhi’s two natural features, and should be protected and preserved. But, in reality, the opposite has happened, with encroachments occurring under Government patronage. In 2005, he filed a plea in the Delhi High Court to get the Government to notify 150 sq km of the ridge as a reserved forest. But the plea was set aside, and the Government notified 77.77 sq km as ridge area. The 1996 apex court order on a plea filed by MC Mehta accorded the protected forest status to the ridge. This tag permits grazing, wood cutting, etc. Demarcation of its area has been on since 2000. Once this is complete, reveals Mr Jain, the ridge will be declared a reserved forest, negating human presence or activities.

However, as per Mr Mehta’s plea, filed in 1985, since the ridge was notified as a reserved forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927, all encroachments would be ‘illegal’, irrespective of Government permission. In Government records, 796 hectares of northern and central ridge were demarcated as reserved forest in 1913, while in 1980, by a notification under the IFA, 20 sites in northern, central and south-central ridge were demarcated as protected forests. Mr Mehta’s plea was to have the reserved forest tag applied to the whole of the ridge. The apex court ordered the Government to set up an environment impact assessment authority to examine the feasibility of projects in the national capital region in environmentally sensitive areas.

The Delhi Master Plan 2021 was notified on February 7, 2007. The website, Delhi Master Plan 2021, under ‘The Perspective for Year 2021’, states the following:

“In 2003, the Ministry of Urban Development issued guidelines and activated the think-tank for the preparation of MPD 2021. It emphasised the emerging need to explore alternate methods of land assembly, private sector participation, and flexible land use and development norms.”

The allusion to “flexible land use and development norms” may be considered an indirect admission that rules for protecting environment and heritage can be changed when required. And, judging by the spate of court cases to protect the Yamuna and its vicinity, and the ridge and forest areas, all of which are being targeted for development purposes, city planning seems to have become an exercise, driven by commercial interests. Petitioners are critical of court orders, viewing them as inadequate for the purpose of countering the ecological damage and human dislocation, entailed by mammoth real estate projects. Mr Ravi Agarwal of Srishti, an NGO that wants an alternate ridge management plan, avers that a more eco-friend land use pattern is required.

Conservationists, intent on saving the Yamuna Floodplains and ridge, which alone can ensure a good quality of life, rightly want the Master Plan of Delhi-2021, to be altered as per sustainable development imperatives. But commercial lobbies reportedly manage to coerce policy-makers to fall in line with their needs, thereby endangering fragile eco-zones.