A hole in Delhi’s green lung

Premium

In the summer of 1996, as parts of the Ridge, Delhi’s main forested area, was under threat, the Supreme Court noted that that some parts of it had been “erased”. It passed a landmark order that it is mandatory to keep the area free of encroachers and that “its pristine glory must be maintained for all times (sic)”. Environmentalists believed the Ridge was safe.

Twenty-eight summers later, white-haired Ram Murthy, who lives near the southern part of the forest area, in a hut off Gaushala Road in Chhatarpur, remembers “important-looking people” with the police visiting the area in February. Within days, hundreds of trees were cut.“Workers came with big machines and hauled the logs onto their trucks, leaving barren land behind,” Murthy said. She didn’t experience what else went down, because she scrambled away from the area with her tea-and-biscuit cart to ensure they didn’t break that as well. Her pucca house and shop, adjacent to the boundary wall of a farmhouse had been razed by authorities in November 2023.

The cutting of the trees made national headlines this July after two petitions were filed, one in the Delhi High Court and another in the Supreme Court. Both revealed that about 1,100 trees were cut in the southern Ridge and the adjoining area of Satbari by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) that manages land and housing for the city’s residents, and comes under the Central government. The felling did not have a go-ahead from the Supreme Court that now wants 100 trees planted for every one chopped down.

This violation is not limited to the Ridge. In the past, there have been similar instances of ecological transgressions.

For instance, the DDA and various other agencies have still not physically demarcated the Yamuna floodplain, leading to encroachments and events that cause damage to the ecosystem. Every winter Delhi and many parts of the Indo-Gangetic plains face severe air pollution, but citizens see no signs of an improvement. Caught in a political dissonance, Delhiites experience the impact of environmental neglect and degradation first-hand.

The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been attacking Delhi Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena, and on Saturday protested in front of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in Delhi. They claim the L-G is “a killer of trees”. The L-G has not responded to this; instead, he has highlighted the greening efforts under his tenure and his plans of tree plantation in the Capital.

Hills and trees

The Ridge is the tail end of the ancient Aravali hills, which are around 1,500 million years old as per government reports, and form a band, stretching from Gujarat, through Rajasthan and Haryana, and ending in Delhi. It is ecologically biodiverse, the home to a variety of flora and fauna native to the region, from babul (Acacia nilotica), phulahi (Acacia modesta), and katha (Acacia catechu) to nilgai, porcupine, and the palm civet.

In Delhi, the Ridge is spread across 7,784 hectares and covers south, central, south-central, north, and a small part of south-west Delhi. A large chunk — 6,626 hectares — is owned by Delhi’s Forest Department. The rest — 1,158 hectares — is owned by many departments, with the largest chunk owned by the DDA.

In May this year, a Central Empowered Committee (CEC), formed on the directions of the Supreme Court, noted in its report that “several orders have been passed and many committees and authorities have been constituted or nominated, but there is absolutely no progress as far as securing the Delhi Ridge is concerned. ”The May report noted that on one hand the rate of clearing of encroachments in the Ridge is slow and on the other hand, diversion of Ridge land for “non-forestry purposes” is increasing.

Also, the data on the extent of encroachments is available only for the area under the ownership of the Forest Department of Delhi government, as per the report. It also says that 5% of the area under the Forest Department has been encroached upon, but there is no data available for the other Ridge areas.

Barren and brown

The 1,100 trees were cut to widen Gaushala Road. The road leads to the newly inaugurated South Asian University and Central Armed Police Forces Institute of Medical Sciences. As the roads goes towards these institutes, the left side features farmhouses, a café, and a few apartment buildings. The right side is now just piles of grey construction waste (locally known as malba) and mud. The trees, kikar, neem, and jamun, as per environmentalists, with deciduous light green leaves that glistened in the sun, are no more. On May 9, the Supreme Court halted the construction of the road. Tyre marks from construction vehicles lead into a full forest. Some police barricades are also stationed near the leftover rubble and dirt. “The trees were once full and green, and offered shade to people stopping for a tea break,” Murthy says. She has set up a cart on the road, selling tea and biscuits.

Mukesh, 34, who works as a grocery supplier to several make-shift kiosks in the area says that the Central government-appointed Lieutenant Governor had visited the area before the trees were cut and had inspected the road along with other officials. Currently, the construction waste left over from road expansion is being picked up by contractual workers with bulldozers. A labourer who wished to remain anonymous says, “We don’t know why, but we were told to pick up all the malba. I think they will re-plant trees here now.”

Environmental fire-fighters

In February, 62-year-old Bindu Kapurea, a social worker, came to know about the felling of trees through a message from a citizen and went to check it out February 24.Kapurea, who had fought against the felling of trees in another road expansion project in the Vasant Kunj area, immediately complained on the Delhi government’s green helpline. She allegedly got a call back informing her that the tree cutting was legal as the L-G had given the permission via a notification on February 14.

Meanwhile, Bhavreen Kandhari, 51, an environmental activist, also found out about it and visited the area on February 29. “I was angry when I went there. We even fight for two trees and here hundreds of trees were cut,” Kandhari says, animatedly.

“But at that point even we didn’t know that 1,100 trees were cut.” The activist says she could see stumps of some of the trees, but the authorities had already started to cover them with soil, and most trunks were already moved out. Attaching photos from the area, she filed an application in an ongoing contempt case on trees she had filed in the Delhi High Court.

On March 18, the High Court issued a contempt notice to the vice-chairperson of DDA and Delhi’s Principal Secretary of the Department of Forest and Wildlife. In the first week of May, Kapurea filed a contempt case in the Supreme Court on the same issue and the top court, over the next two months, heavily criticised the DDA and also pulled up the Delhi government.

We all fall down

Neeraj Kumar, 44, who works as a driver and lives in Satyanand Colony, next to Gaushala Road, alleges that the alignment of the road was changed by the DDA to benefit the farmhouses.

“If the road was built as per the initial plan, only 100 trees would have been cut. But they expanded the road only on the right side and 1,100 trees had to be cut,” Kumar says. “After the DDA demolished the boundary wall of two farmhouses, the officials said we are also on DDA land and will be evicted. How can it be? My family has been living here for 45 years,” he says. Kumar and others filed a case in the High Court on the issue.The allegation of changing of the alignment of the road has been taken up by the AAP and the Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj. On May 16, Bharadwaj wrote to the Chief Secretary to provide details of the landowners in the area on both sides of the road within a week. Kumar produces a document that shows he had complained to the Prime Minister’s office on February 11 that thousands of trees would be cut due to the road widening. On February 15, the DDA had filed an application before the Supreme Court for the felling of trees.

On March 4, the court rejected it by saying that the application is “very vague which seeks permission to fell/translocate 1,051 trees” and directed the DDA to re-examine the proposal by employing experts in the field. “The exercise to be undertaken by the DDA is necessary for ensuring that while public work is carried out, minimum number of trees are required to be felled. The said approach is not reflected from the application made by the DDA,” the court said.

The DDA at that point did not disclose to the court that trees had already been felled from February 16 to 26. Of the 1,051 trees, 422 was in non-Ridge areas and 629 in the Ridge, but officials now say some of the 422 trees could also be in the Ridge. “When this Court heard the application on 4th March, 2024, the DDA suppressed this (that the trees had already been cut) material fact,” the Supreme Court said on May 16.

From May 14 onwards, the top court started asking the questions about who had ordered a private contractor to cut trees in the Ridge area without the mandatory permission from the court. On June 24, the Supreme Court observed that prima facie, it appeared that the entire blame had been shifted onto the subordinate officers of the DDA by the vice-chairperson.

Ram Murthy in her makeshift tea-and-biscuit cart. | Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

On both June 24 and June 26, the court pushed different authorities to understand who gave the order to cut the trees, but did not get a clear answer.

In its latest hearing on July 12, the Supreme Court observed that prima facie, it appeared that officers were reluctant to state what exactly happened during the L-G’s visit to the site on February 3. “Now, the truth has come out,” the court said. The court has asked the DDA to clarify whether it instructed the contractor to fell the trees by its own decision or on the basis of an oral direction issued by the L-G — who is the chairperson of the DDA — on February 3.

The court also slammed the Delhi government for exercising its “non-existent powers” by issuing a notification (with the L-G’s orders) on February 14 allowing the DDA to cut 422 trees.Kandhari says there is still a long way to go. “My hair has started turning white fighting for the environment, but things are not changing,” she says, with disappointment. “Our case in the High Court is contempt of a second case, which is actually contempt of another case. So, it is contempt of contempt. Is this a joke? Courts generally let off violators of offences like illegally cutting trees with a fine, but that is not enough,” she says. “When government agencies violate law, the responsibility of officers has to be fixed. They should be sent to jail, even if it is for a day. Only then will the situation change.”

Murthy remembers a full forest adjacent to the road, where cattle grazed and birds flew, and her home that had been built by taking a loan. She says, “I know my house was on government land, but they razed it without any notice. I am still paying off my debt on it.”