The Rs 16,000 crore Jewar airport needs to be given up for saving water bodies in the bread basket of western Uttar Pradesh

India recently hosted the United Nations Conference Against Desertification. Ironically, less than 45 kilometres from the venue in Greater Noida, a massive international airport project will see desertification of the fertile horn of western Uttar Pradesh (UP). The project must be abandoned to protect farming, lakes, aquifers, swamps and the ecology of the critical northern plains.

The Rs 16,000 crore project, just 70 km from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), has evoked severe protest by farmers and consequent increase in compensation. The land at the project site is primarily agricultural in nature, with over 6,000 big trees — mainly arjun and babool — and plenty of wetlands. Since townships and activity areas are to spring up all around the airport, many more thousand trees would be felled. About 1,000 known water bodies may disappear.

Delhi-NCR does not need a second international airport so close to the IGIA. It is a massive economic waste at a time when India is grappling with a slowdown. The real estate all around this project in a 40 sq km area is gasping as hundreds of projects remain incomplete. The Yamuna Expressway, built through the stretch, is itself in crisis. Its propounder, the Jaypee Group, is going through problems amid heavy debt and Non-Performing Assets (NPAs).The Hindon Air Force base airport, that has been opened to civilian traffic, a stone’s throw from Jewar, hardly finds an airline to host. Another 100 km to the west is the Agra airport with international facilities. Still, under pressure of the real estate lobby and unscrupulous political parties, the acquisition of land for the 2,000 hectare project has started. But as larger areas come up for development, there is high risk to the ecology in an almost 100-km stretch.

It is not just around Noida and Greater Noida, even Gurugram is subject to massive environmental degradation due to projects being pushed by a greedy real estate lobby. The boom around all these places has transformed thousands of hectares of arable land into plots for highrises, at least half of them incomplete, and leading just not only to an environmental but also an economic disaster. What is not discussed is that the more you develop the land for real estate,  more it dehydrates the country, said HN Dixit, Speaker of the UP Assembly.

Over the years, Delhi and its neighbourhood are getting deprived of natural water sources. The area around Jewar is now being subjected to similar degradation of aqua sources. The region has also the highest number of brick kilns, in themselves an ecological hazard in terms of heat, dust and smoke. Close to the region in Aligarh-Kasganj, Alipur-Barwara and Kasganj-Farrukhabad, acute shortage of water for irrigation is being faced, again due to the construction of the Ganga Expressway, and other human encroachment of aquifers. The administration is trying to revive old river channels. Nobody knows if it would succeed or not but it has become a money spinner.

Interestingly enough, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government was not in favour of the airport project and had sounded ecological concerns while questioning the necessity of having an airport so close to the IGIA, Agra airport and the Aligarh airstrip.

The airport project goes against the move to rejuvenate 281 ponds in Jewar itself. About 800 other ponds and water body rejuvenation efforts in Noida, Dadri, Greater Noida, Dankaur and Bisrakh may also get affected.

The Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate BN Singh has said that ponds and other water bodies are being encroached as construction activities are increasing. He says ponds in many places, including Bilaspur and Surajpur, were encroached by the administration for dumping growing waste.

Dadri, on the way to Jewar, declared semi-critical for water scarcity, built its municipality office on 1,140 square metre of pond land. In nearby Tugalpur, a college was built on a water body.

Aquifers in Jewar have an over-exploitation rate of 108.81 per cent, according to the groundwater department. As the area is getting more populated with the impending airport, more ponds and aquifers, despite efforts at conservation, are becoming victims of development. This includes construction of the airport, industries, large hotels, warehouses, roads and many other facilities.  Consequently the critical region may dry out completely. As vehicular traffic and industrial activities surge, it would increase air pollution. Being close to Delhi, the degradation of a large tract of land will further heat up the national capital.

It signifies that massive finances involved are posing challenges to the world leadership which has to choose between conserving or devastating the environment.

The Jewar airport project needs reconsideration and restoration of land back to the farmers to save the bread basket.

(The writer is a senior journalist)