In key step before it can be notified as reserve forest, ground verification sought of 3,200 hectares of land in Southern Ridge
In a compliance affidavit uploaded to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) website on Monday, the Forest department stated that it had submitted a revised draft notification for 3,287.076 hectares — spread across 12 villages including Asola, Bhatti, Dera Mandi, Jaunapur, and Tughlakabad — for government approval on April 3.
A high-level meeting was chaired by Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena and attended by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa, and senior officials on May 23. In the meeting, it was decided that the Forest department, along with the Revenue department, would carry out a ground verification 'to reconfirm' that the land in Phase I is free of encroachments and under the clear possession of the Forest department.
On June 17, the Forest department wrote to the District Magistrates of South-East and New Delhi, requesting them to undertake the verification exercise 'on an immediate basis,' according to the affidavit filed by Deputy Conservator of Forests (Protection & Monitoring) Ankit Kumar.
The affidavit was filed in a matter ongoing since 2013, when petitioner Sonya Ghosh sought legal protection for the Ridge.
The NGT in January 2021 directed the Chief Secretary of the GNCTD 'to ensure that requisite notification…is issued within three months in respect of the area about which there is no controversy'.
The tribunal had noted that there is an 'urgent need to take necessary steps to protect the Ridge.' This, it said, would be enabled 'by taking necessary steps to finalise the notification under Section 20 of the Forest Act for reserved forest and protection by appropriate measures'. 'The land about which there is clarity can be included in such notification, and the remaining process can be undergone separately but expeditiously,' it said. It underlined that no non-forest activity is permissible in the Ridge area.
However, due to the pendency even after four years, the NGT in April this year noted that 'more than four years have passed' since its earlier directions to notify the Ridge's undisputed, unencroached portions under Section 20. The tribunal asked for the current status and a timeline for issuing the final notification.
Once completed, the notification will grant legal 'Reserve Forest' status to the Southern Ridge Phase I, shielding it from development and encroachment activities.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Centre's curbs on end-of-life vehicles: Not even a band-aid
The Delhi government has asked the Centre's Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to pause the fuel ban on end-of-life vehicles. The order to stop fuel supply to 10-year-old diesel-run vehicles and 15-year-old petrol vehicles, which came into effect on July 1, was justified as an anti-pollution measure. Delhi's Environment Minister, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, however, said that the move could be 'counter-productive'. He is right, to an extent. The restrictions could push owners of ageing vehicles to source diesel or petrol from Delhi's neighbouring states and create conditions for an illicit inter-state fuel market. Delhi CM Rekha Gupta's argument that the ban will jeopardise the livelihoods of a large section of the city's population that depends on two-wheelers is also valid. However, both the restrictions and the pushback against them are symptomatic of a longstanding failing of both the Centre and its agencies, including the CAQM, as well as successive Delhi governments. The Capital has longed for a well-thought-out plan to clean its air for at least a decade-and-a-half. All it has got are blunt measures and piecemeal solutions. The CAQM had put the onus on petrol pump dealers to enforce the ban. Failure to do so would attract penalties under Section 192 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. As a Petrol Dealers Association petition to the Delhi High Court pointed out, the move burdened 'petrol pump owners and their attendants… without them being necessarily equipped or authorised under any law to carry out such a responsibility'. On paper, the end-of-life vehicles are flagged by the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system installed at fuel stations and match the data against the government's Vahan portal. The trial run for these systems began at the end of last year, and last month the CAQM reportedly claimed that the ANPR scanners were ready to implement the ban on end-of-life vehicles. But, as Sirsa admitted, at several places in the city, ANPRs are riddled with technical glitches, including faulty sensors and incorrect placement of cameras. That the system is not integrated across the NCR shows that very little planning went into making the restrictions effective. Stemming vehicular pollution requires sustained engagement with the complex reasons behind motorisation — lifestyle choices, livelihood imperatives and urban sprawl that increases travel time and distances. Successive governments in Delhi haven't addressed this imperative adequately. Even the relatively easier task of nudging people to invest in the fitness of their vehicles has never received the policy attention it required. In the months it has been in office, Delhi's BJP government has given little indication of learning from the failures of its predecessors. It must course correct.
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
‘Open defiance of courts': Lawyer who fought for a decade to get old vehicles banned on Delhi govt's U-turn
In 2014, Delhi-based lawyer Vardhaman Kaushik moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT) over the Capital's choking air pollution crisis. A decade and orders from the NGT and Supreme Court later, a no-fuel ban on end-of-life petrol and diesel vehicles has barely lasted three days. On Thursday, in a letter to the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) — the overarching statutory body for matters concerning air pollution — Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa had said that it would not be feasible to enforce the ban 'at this juncture', and 'immediate implementation… may be premature and potentially counter-productive'. The ban came into effect on July 1. The Delhi government's move has drawn sharp criticism from several quarters. According to Kaushik, the 'poor implementation' of the ban order is 'an open defiance of courts'. 'The (Supreme Court) judgment (on fuel ban) had come in long ago, in 2018… and it has not been executed,' Kaushik told The Indian Express. 'The fuel ban was only a way to implement the court's directions. The hue and cry over this now doesn't make sense.' 'This is not a new rule. These rules for end-of-life vehicles have been there for a long time. The judgment is not being taken seriously,' Kaushik said, adding that only a few vehicles have been impounded over the years. Kaushik dismissed the argument that the ban unfairly targets the middle class. 'People who can afford cars and sit in air-conditioned rooms are cribbing at not being able to sell their car at good rates… Their opinion should not matter,' he said. 'The larger population that cannot afford cars bears the brunt of air pollution.' He insisted that emissions, not the age of the vehicles, should be the focus. However, he underscored that age remains a legitimate proxy. 'Even if an age cap is put aside as suggested by the Environment Minister, the fact remains that a (Bharat Standard) BS III or a BS IV vehicle will always be far more polluting than a BS VI vehicle. The government needs to take a call at this juncture.' In April 2015, acting on Kaushik's plea, the NGT had laid the legal foundation for phasing out old vehicles from the Capital's roads. In 2018, the Supreme Court banned diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years in Delhi. The legal backing for the ban was reinforced by the 2018 SC order, which had upheld the NGT order. 'The Transport Departments of NCR will immediately announce that all diesel vehicles more than 10 years old and petrol vehicles more than 15 years old shall not ply in NCR in terms of the order of the National Green Tribunal…,' the order had said. It also mandated the impounding of violators and directed that lists of such vehicles be published on the websites of the Central Pollution Control Board and respective transport departments. Following the CAQM's April order on enforcing a fuel ban, a phased rollout was planned, first in Delhi from July 1, then expanded to the districts of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, and Sonipat in November. The plan was to expand the ban to the rest of the NCR from April 1, 2026.
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
NGT: Better river flow mgmt required to prevent fish kills
Kochi: The (NGT) has stated that preventing future fish kills requires better management of river flow, strict industrial waste regulation and control of any kind of pollution from industrial sources. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Disposing of a batch of petitions, including three suo motu cases filed by the principal bench and the southern bench on the mass fish kill that occurred downstream of the Periyar River on May 21-22, 2024, it directed the Kerala state pollution control board (KSPCB) to submit all the detailed reports filed before the bench to the Kerala High Court. "Since the High Court of Kerala is already seized of the matter, which addresses the same issues involved in the Original Applications (OA) pending before us, it would be appropriate to leave it to the decision of the HC to pass appropriate orders," the bench said. The PCB, in its report to the NGT, stated that a HC-appointed committee of officials, comprising (i) the secretary, Directorate of Environment and Climate Change, (ii) the regional director, Central Pollution Control Board, Bangalore, and (iii) the chairman, PCB, along with the amicus curiae, visited all the affected places and the petitioners and submitted a report. The committee's report before the NGT recommended curbing the Periyar pollution in two folds. One set of recommendations was directed to the departments concerned, namely the industries department, irrigation department and PCB. Remediation of Kuzhikandam Thodu has to be initiated as per the detailed project report (DPR) prepared and recommended for administrative sanction, the bench said. The NGT noted that the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (Kufos), which is a party respondent in all the above petitions, constituted an expert committee to prepare a report on the fish kill incident in the Periyar River and downstream of Pathalam regulator bridge. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The expert committee also provided a report with recommendations, including an AI-assisted system for displaying and alerting stakeholders downstream before opening the shutters. These are also to be submitted before the HC along with all the other reports filed in the case. The tribunal stated that since the HC is already seized of the matter and further orders are awaited, based on the recommendations given by the committee to the industries situated in the Eloor–Edayar Industrial area and the various departments, the bench was disposing of the petitions.
