Months after the gala event by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of living on the banks of the Yamuna, the controversy regarding the damage it did to the floodplain of the river refuses to die down.
However, it is not the first time that such a hue and cry has been made over damage to the Yamuna floodplains. From construction of Akshardham Temple to Commonwealth Games Village, and from encroachment of the floodplains by individuals to their “systematic destruction” by allocating land to big builders for construction of huge complexes, the issue of damage to the floodplains of Yamuna, as well as Hindon, has been in news for years. Yet little has been done to even protect the river, let alone reviving it.
Experts feel the rampant construction on the floodplains of the Yamuna poses a grave threat not only to the survival of the river, but also to the city as due to significantly reduced flood-carrying capacity of the river, a major flood could cause serious damage in near future.
Ravi Monga of Yamuna Muktikaran Abhiyaan, who has been actively campaigning for survival of the Yamuna, said, “The matter is very simple, but we make it complicated. In India, we have monsoons, which means that unlike European countries, we receive most of the water in just one to one-and-a-half month during the monsoons. This is the period when all the rivers of the country overflow and the size of the river expands to over eight to nine times of its original size.”
However, the embankments and numerous constructions on the floodplains, especially within the 22 km stretch through urban Delhi, have already constricted the river zone to a very narrow space, and at many points, the channel flows along the embankment and hence, has no floodplain left.
“Without the floodplains, the water received during the monsoons will not stop and it will not seep into the ground. By encroaching into the floodplains, not only we are killing the rivers, but we are also creating an alarming situation where the river will not be able to carry the excess water that it may receive in case of an excessive rainfall,” Monga added.
The data on floods in Delhi shows the city has experienced floods at least once every decade since 1947. According to a report “Restoration and Conservation of River Yamuna” submitted to the National Green Tribunal, the 1978-flood with water level reaching 207.4 m at old railway bridge had inundated areas as far as Model Town and Mukherjee Nagar.
“It is important to recall here that following the 1978 flood in Delhi, the Yamuna Standing Committee (YSC) of the Central Water Commission (CWC), in its 37th meeting (May 1979) had decided that “... the minimum spacing between future embankments on the banks of the Yamuna should be 5 km and the embankment should be aligned at a minimum distance of at least 600 m from the active river edge at the time of construction of embankments.”,” the report had noted.
“Unfortunately, this decision has not been followed and today, the maximum distance between the two embankments of the Yamuna is less than 2 km, and hence the floodwater carrying capacity of the river has been greatly compromised,” the report added.
Environmentalist Vikrant Tongad shared that the condition of the Hindon floodplains is no different. “There is uninhibited construction underway on the floodplains with around 20 lakh people living in the land that earlier accommodated just eight villages. While there are immediate effects of this leading to pollution of the river, dumping of debris and extraction of groundwater, but in the long run, there is also a threat to the people residing in these areas,” he said.
