Greens oppose residential yoga facility on river bed (Hindu 02 September 2012)

New Delhi: Even as questions are still being raised about the legality of the location of the Akshardham temple and the Commonwealth Games Village on the Yamuna river bed, a new structure between these buildings is making the greens see red.
The yoga-cum-residential complex being built by the Akshardham trust is located on 25,497 sq m land but authorities have not applied for clearance to either the Delhi state environment impact assessment committee or the Delhi urban arts committee.
According to spokesman of the temple trust, Janak Dave, all necessary permissions have been obtained for the project. “This is a yoga centre with residential facilities for our volunteers. Whatever permissions were necessary have been obtained,” he said.

For any construction with a built up area of 20,000 sq m or more, an environment clearance is necessary. Sources in SEIAC confirmed that no such request had come to them. “This project — on grounds of its size and location on the river bed — would need a goahead from the committee. However, it has never been submitted to us and is a violation of the Environment Protection Act,” said a member.

DUAC also confirmed that their permission was necessary for the same reasons but nobody had approached them. “The project has never been submitted to us and hence permission from DUAC is out of the question,” said a source.

Manoj Misra, convener of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, brought the matter to the notice of the LG in 2010 but government officials had claimed that the project had been cleared by the agencies concerned. “Work on the project started around November 2010. The land on which the building is coming up was not part of the original Akshardham temple and this extra land was transferred to the trust after the temple was built. We filed an RTI with DDA in September last year but are yet to receive a reply from them,” said Misra.

He added that in 2000, DDA had sold 12 hectare land to Akshardham. Later, Akshardham procured additional land in front on lease from the UP irrigation department under a commitment that its land use would be ‘green’.

“However, much of that was converted to a parking lot. On the other hand, construction work is also going on in the area which has been earmarked as ‘parking’ under the zonal plan for zone ‘O’. When there is already such a huge parking lot available, we have asked DDA what work is now taking place. DDA is yet to respond to the query,” said Misra.