The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has taken suo-moto cognisance of a report published by The Hindu that physical demarcation of the Yamuna’s floodplain in Delhi – a basic step to help identify and protect the sensitive ecosystem from encroachment – is incomplete nine years after the NGT ordered authorities to do it.
The report had mentioned that while the Delhi government had claimed in submissions to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that “100%” physical demarcation of a major stretch of the Yamuna’s floodplain in the city has been done, visits to the sites in question and interviews with officials by have confirmed that major gaps persist.
“The above news item indicates violation of the Water Prevention and Control of Pollution Act, 1974 and the Environment Protection Act, 1986. The news item raises substantial issue relating to compliance of the environmental norms and implementation of the provisions of scheduled enactment,” the principal bench of the NGT headed by chairperson Prakash Shrivastava, judicial member Arun Kumar Tyagi, and expert member A. Senthil Vel said in an order dated May 21.
The order said that the news item further alleges that nine years after NGT ordered the identification of encroachments on the floodplains, it has also not been completed and was not even initiated after the devastating 2023 floods. “The article states as per the latest satellite images, illegal permanent constructions have only increased since NGT’s landmark judgment in 2015,” the order said.
After the July 2023 floods, experts had said that permanent constructions encroaching on the river’s floodplain was one of the main reasons for the intensity of the flood Delhi witnessed, although there was heavy rainfall upstream of Delhi. Encroachments destroy the water holding capacity of floodplains and also constricts the area of flow of the river.
The report was part of a five-part series published by The Hindu on different aspects of what plagues the floodplains and why Delhi continues to flood.
The series published in April had highlighted that nine months after Delhi witnessed the worst flood in its history – which forced over 25,000 people living on the banks of the Yamuna into relief camps and wrecked damage worth crores of rupees – nothing much has changed on the ground with two months for the next monsoon and possibly another flood.
