Delhi has just finished experimenting with odd-even scheme, a road rationing method to curb air pollution by reducing the number of vehicles plying on roads by half, after it became apparent that city was indeed choking without clean air.
At a time when people are facing health crisis in the city with respect to clean air and water it calls for a true assessment of damage caused to Delhi’s environment over the years and preserve what’s still out there.
“Though it’s known that air pollution is caused by vehicles but it breached all safety levels because the sink that absorbs our pollutants is absent. What is that sinkIJ It’s out forests and water bodies. However over the years, our native forests are lost and our wetlands have vanished,” said CR Babu, professor emeritus at Centre for Management of Degraded Ecosystems (CMEDE).
Delhi has two life supporting systems in absence of which life cannot be sustained in the city. One is river Yamuna and the other is Delhi Ridge. Over the period of time, as Prof Babu puts it, both the life supporting systems have lost their life because of urbanisation.
While unbridled flow of untreated sewage has turned 52-km stretch of Yamuna downstream flowing from Wazirabad reservoir to Okhla into an “open sewer” and rendered it lifeless, the vast flood plains which were once home to wetlands, vast grasslands and forests have either been encroached upon, or converted into agricultural land. Remaining water bodies along Yamuna are filled with sewage coming from 22 major outfalls.
“Flood plains spread across 9,000 hectare used to store a lot of flood water and recharge ground water reservoir. Now these flood plains are highly degraded and some of the flood plains are used for dumping solid waste,” lamented Prof Babu.
“We used to have large flood plain grass lands and forests those all are gone now,” he added.
Unlike Yamuna basin, Delhi did succeed in protecting Delhi Ridge an extension of the Aravalli hills into national Capital — however in parts and not before it was completely ravaged by mining when the Supreme Court intervened and declared the remaining 7777 hectare of Aravallis forests as protected.
The biggest chunk of Delhi Ridge in South Delhi sprawls across 6,200 hectare and includes Asola
and Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary which is home to Delhi’s last endemic trees, flora and fauna and wildlife.
However, almost two decades after it was notified as a Wildlife Sanctuary, it is slowly being subjected to new encroachments in absence of proper demarcation and a significant part may as well be lost once Delhi Government finishes drawing boundaries around forest land as directed by Delhi High Court.
“The Delhi Government has failed in protecting Delhi ridge. There’s been massive encroachment since forest land (in and around Asola and Bhatti) was reclaimed from Gram Sabhas in 90’s. The land was demarcated soon after it was declared protected land but a lot of land has been encroached upon after that. And instead of removing the encroachment, Government is legalising that encroachment by shifting boundaries. Approximately 15-20 per cent of protected land lost to illegal encroachment is now difficult to reclaim,” said Rahul Chaudhary, environmental lawyer.
Though Prof Babu disagreed with encroachment claim, he believed that the requirement of land for the development of city infrastructure does pose a threat to these forests.
“This area is protected by boundary wall to a large extent (main patches). If there’s any threat, that is diversion of land for infrastructure development, some part of the ridge is lost due to that.”
The Delhi Ridge is called lungs of the city and protects Delhi from desertification by the dry winds of the deserts of Rajasthan. It also serves as an important water sink and recharges ground water of Delhi.
Ask Prof Babu what if the Delhi ends up losing Delhi Ridge like Yamuna he warns, “loss of the Delhi Ridge
will have horrific consequences. Delhi will turn into a gas chamber. These forests have major role to play and without them, Delhi will become a desert.”