Like any other construction site, there are trucks carrying materials, incomplete buildings with exposed bricks and temporary shacks housing labourers along the Yamuna starting from Khizrabad village till Jamia Nagar.
Unlike other sites in the Capital, these activities are happening along the floodplains of the Yamuna, where construction is banned.
The 22-km-long stretch of the Yamuna in Delhi has been at the centre of efforts to clean the river, with several court orders and thousands of crores of rupees spent on it over the past two decades.
While environmentalists say the river is still dying, the floodplains are alive. Instead of flora and fauna, the floodplains are abuzz with illegal activities.
Seen from the Delhi-Noida Direct road that connects Noida with south Delhi, the new buildings over the years have taken over the view that used to be dominated by grazing cows or floodwater during heavy monsoon rains.
Construction debris
Today, the tall green grasses on the floodplains abruptly give way to unpaved roads embedded with garbage and construction debris. Buildings, up to four storeys tall, stand behind that, near pools of water collecting in the marshes. For locals, however, it is a nallah or a drain and not a river.
“After the pushta [embankment] was made a few years ago, water stopped coming into our streets. Before that, our streets used to get flooded every year,” says Bablu, a painter who has lived along the Yamuna near Jamia Nagar for 35 years.
Though one could see new buildings coming up, all the locals that The Hindu spoke to insisted that their neighbourhood had been standing at the site for decades.
Salamatullah says he has lived in the neighbourhood for 40 years. The land, he says, belonged to a “gujaran” who sold it decades ago. Now, the only vacant land remaining belonged to the government, he says.
‘Choked drains’
“Not much has changed. Some people have added floors to their buildings. We have got water supply by paying for pipes on our own,” he says.
Another resident, Safat, who moved from Sultanpur about three years ago, says he pays ₹2,500 a month in rent for his one-room accommodation. Complaining of “choked drains”, he says malaria, dengue and typhoid are rampant in the neighbourhood.
Bablu adds that the local municipal corporation carries out inspections for mosquito larvae but the problem has not been addressed.
“They challan us for ₹5,000 if there is even two inches of water in our cooler tanks but no one says or does anything about the nallah,” he says, pointing towards the river.
Having lived in the neighbourhood since 2001, Mohd Ansarullah, an air-conditioner technician, says since the roads are unpaved, when vehicles drive by the sand gets blown and a “smog” settles over the locality.
“It becomes difficult to stand outside,” he says.
The suspended dust and sand are making life difficult for residents today but environmentalists are concerned about the dangers the future could bring. With soft river soil having been mixed with debris, the stability of the buildings are in question.
NGT judgment
“There is rampant illegal construction on the floodplains. It is so dangerous. It is not just small houses, but multi-storey buildings that have been made in the past two to three years. We don’t know what might happen if there is even a little tremor,” says Manoj Misra, an environmentalist whose NGO Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has been fighting to preserve the river.
It was acting on a petition by Mr. Misra that the National Green Tribunal passed a detailed judgment in January 2015 prohibiting construction activities on the floodplains.
“We direct and prohibit carrying on of any construction activity in the demarcated flood plain henceforth. We direct all the concerned authorities including the Delhi Development Authority [DDA], municipal corporations and the NCT Delhi, to take immediate and effective steps for repossessing the flood plain area under the unauthorised and illegal occupation of any person and/or any other body,” the Bench headed by then NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar had said.
‘Complete prohibition’
Imposing a “complete prohibition” on the dumping of debris on the river bank, the green panel had further stated that violators would be liable to pay a compensation amounting to ₹50,000.
But over three years later, large stretches of the floodplains have construction debris and garbage dumps. A board that has a “warning” on it by the DDA, which is responsible for the floodplains, stands rusted and damaged, while trucks carrying garbage drive past.
“There appears to be big time collusion between the people there and DDA officials. The number of buildings has gone up in the last couple of years,” says Mr. Misra.
The area MLA for Okhla constituency, Amanatullah Khan, says he has raised the issue with the DDA, the municipal corporation and the police several times, but to no avail.
“The DDA is involved in having the encroachment and illegal construction done. I have said many times that hand over the land to the Delhi government and I will have a park made for the residents. But, there has been no stop to the illegal construction,” he said.
Biodiversity park
In fact, Mr. Misra said the principal committee set up by the NGT had inspected the area and recommended a biodiversity park. But, there has been no progress on that, he said.
While the 2015 NGT order banned construction on the 25-year floodline (the area that would be covered in a once-in-25-year intensity flood), Mr. Misra said a Central government notification from October 7, 2016 extended the prohibition to the 100-year floodline.
“The law of the land is being violated on a daily basis,” said Mr. Misra.
The vice-chairperson of the DDA, Udai Pratap Singh, however, said steps had been taken to prevent the illegal activities.
“We have facilities to monitor the areas. There are patrolling teams and security guards in place to ensure that no dumping of debris takes place on the floodplains. A lot of people who sometimes arrive at the floodplains to dump various materials have also been challaned in the past,” he said.
‘Political factors’
When The Hindu visited last week, no security guards or cameras could be seen. Other officials in the DDA said there had been certain hurdles in the implementation of the NGT order.
A senior officer explained that though cameras were being installed, there was a lack of staff to carry out real-time surveillance. The officer also admitted that some of the construction activity was on DDA land and illegal, but there had been “political factors” that prevented action, especially before elections since the Lok Sabha polls are in 2019.
“Who will be responsible if something happens,” asks Mr. Misra.
(With inputs from
Shinjini Ghosh)
