The environmentalists and courts are doing every bit to save Yamuna and check misuse of floodplains with orders banning any activity near the river, determining the floodplains afresh and a halt on any construction on it.
However, in a latest development, which has disquieted environmentalists, the DDA and the UP Irrigation Department have allotted land in the active floodplain of the Yamuna, opposite the Sarai Kale Khan in west bank and opposite the Mayur Vihar Phase-I in east bank respectively to private parties to set up batching/concrete plants for the upcoming Barapullah Elevated road cum bridge over river Yamuna.
Environmentalist Manoj Misra, who has been fighting for saving Yamuna for years now, has shot off a letter to Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung contending that such an allotment of riverbank is “illegal, wrong, risky and in the teeth of the judgment and ongoing case at the National Green Tribunal”.
Mr Misra has also written to secretary, Ministry of water resources Shashi Shekhar who is also the chairperson of the high-powered committee.
A concrete plant or a batching plant is a device that combines various ingredients to form concrete, which is used in construction works.
Mr Misra said the NGT order clearly bars any new construction (temporary or permanent) in the flood plain of the river Yamuna in Delhi.
He says the two sites in question are risky as both these sites went under deep waters during the recent floods in river Yamuna in 2010 and in 2013.
“The site opposite Mayur Vihar phase one is a natural choice for a water body under the flood plain Restoration plan.
“The site opposite the Sarai Kale Khan which as per the master plan (MPD) is designated for Rajiv Gandhi Smriti Van, had been used unauthorisedly earlier too,” he says.
The activist highlights how the same site was allotted to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation in the year 2002 for a period of three years by the Yamuna standing committee but the DDA never bothered to do so and it was only after completion of work on phase III in the year 2015 that the land was finally vacated.
“And now for it (DDA) to again allot the said land to a private company is beyond any logic or authority. Why has this land been then designated to be developed as a Smriti Van, if it had to be repeatedly misutilised in the manner alleged?,” asks he.
He has now requested that the allotment be rescinded as he said “a private party is supposed to find its own site or land for the said use, but if the work order obligates the commissioning agency to provide the same, then why can’t the DDA identify and designate land for such an activity as part of its master planning and at a site away from the river bed?”
Environmentalist Manoj Misra has written to L-G Najeeb Jung contending that such an allotment of riverbank is “illegal, wrong, risky and in the teeth of the judgment and ongoing case at the National Green Tribunal”
