A whopping ₹42.02 crore would be required to restore the Yamuna floodplains, which was ravaged due to a cultural extravaganza organised by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living last year, an expert committee has told the National Green Tribunal.
The panel has said that the rehabilitation plan would comprise two components — physical and biological — and they would cost ₹28.73 crore and ₹l3.29 crore respectively, besides additional ancillary expenses.
Added expenses
The NGT-appointed panel elaborated the timeline and the mechanism to be undertaken to ensure revival of the riverbed. It said the physical component should be taken up immediately and completed in two years’ time, while the biological aspect should be initiated simultaneously, which would take 10 years.
Besides the two components, the rehabilitation of the floodplains would require funds to meet the expenses of a team of experts for the next 10 years, along with the cost of transportation of material outside the riverbed, the committee said. These estimates are approximate and need to be strengthened through commissioning of Detailed Project Report, it added.
Seven-member panel
Implementation of the action plan requires extensive monitoring for which the NGT may consider creating an appropriate body/team of experts, the panel said in its 31-page report.
The NGT had constituted the seven-member committee last year to inspect the site of the World Culture Festival. It is headed by Shashi Shekhar, secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, and has senior scientists and experts from National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, IIT-Delhi and other agencies as its members.
In it recommendations to the Tribunal, the expert panel has said that major restoration work has to be carried out to compensate for the damage to the Yamuna floodplains. Advocate Kush Sharma, who represented the Delhi Development Authority, refused to comment on the findings in the report and said they were going through its contents.
The green body had last year allowed the Art of Living Foundation to hold three-day World Culture Festival on the Yamuna floodplains, while expressing its helplessness in banning the event because of “fait accompli”. It had imposed ₹5 crore as interim environment compensation on the foundation for the event’s impact on the environment after Yamuna activist Manoj Mishra alleged that Art of Living was violating NGT orders.
‘Completely destroyed’
Initially, a four member-committee had recommended that Art of Living Foundation should pay ₹100-120 crore as restoration cost for “extensive and severe damage” to the Yamuna floodplains.
Later, the seven-member expert committee told the NGT that the entire floodplain area used for the Art of Living event, between DND flyover and the Barapulla drain (on the right bank of Yamuna), had been “completely destroyed, not simply damaged”.
“The ground is now totally levelled, compacted and hardened and is totally devoid of water bodies or depressions and almost completely devoid of any vegetation. “The area where the grand stage was erected is heavily consolidated -- most likely with a different kind of external material used to level the ground and compress it. Huge amount of earth and debris have been dumped to construct the ramps for access from the DND flyover and from the two pontoon bridges across the Barapulla drain,” the panel had said.
