A tale of Delhi's vanishing marshlands

Hindustan Times

03-06-2025

On a humid May afternoon, 64-year-old Saleem Bhura sits on a weathered cot at the edge of a dense patch of reed grasses in the heart of north Delhi's Jahangirpuri. Towering six to seven feet high, the Phragmites and Cattail grasses sway gently, concealing one of the last remnants of the once-sprawling Jahangirpuri marshes. 'This 'johad' used to be massive,' Bhura recalls, gazing into the thicket. 'But it's all been eaten up. People burn the grass, dump debris, and soon, another building springs up. MCD, police—everyone gets bribes.'
To be sure, marshes are low-lying areas which may be located near rivers, lakes or wetland ecosystems that are dominated by grasses and soft stemmed vegetation that thrive in saturated soil condition. These act as a catchment for run-off water, supporting their unique ecosystem.
Once spread over acres, currently, only isolated pockets of north Delhi marshlands currently host grasses, such as Phragmitis, indicating a high groundwater level. During a spot-check on May 23, HT found that even these remaining patches were threatened by fresh construction waste and illegal structures.
Barely 500 metres from Bhura's perch, a yesteryear waterbody has been transformed into a 'jheel park'—a park in name only, devoid of water. 'The lake dried up a decade ago,' says resident Ranjit Pandit. 'Embankments and walls block water flow, so during monsoons, the other side floods while this remains dry.'
Satellite imagery from 2013 showed a thriving marshland with a significant waterbody in the area.
Further north, along the Outer Ring Road, the degradation continues. A 12-acre marshland that existed until 2012 has been largely overtaken by construction debris. The remaining grass cover is narrowing, with parts being used to store industrial containers and waste.
In 2012, Delhi Jal Board, which owned 285 acres of the marshland since 2004, handed over 42 acres to Delhi Police, 60 acres to PWD and more recently, 114 acres to Delhi Metro. Unlike lakes and water bodies, marshlands do not enjoy any legal protection. The DDA is working towards ecological restoration of around 25.38 hectares of Dheerpur wetlands in the region.
Ecological importance
Once an extensive part of the Yamuna ecosystem, the Jahangirpuri marshes connected with wetlands that extended from the Yamuna floodplains to areas around Azadpur and Dheerpur. In colonial-era records and irrigation maps, this whole belt was often loosely estimated at around 700 hectares, but the area decreased to around 300 hectares in the early 2000s. Changes in land use and further encroachments meant that by 2013, the Delhi Master Plan recognised only 74 hectares as marshland, marking a drastic reduction in its overall area.
The marshland also acted as the catchment area for run-off from the north Delhi Azadpur belt and ridge. Its destruction has also led to increased flooding during monsoon, but lessons have not been learnt.
Civic agencies continue to mark such water-accumulating sites as 'low-lying wasteland', filling them with construction debris, as well as soil derivatives from the biomining project at the three landfill sites. With 28 million tonnes of legacy waste yielding 60-70% of inert material, several low-lying water accumulating sites in Outer Delhi and Rohini are being filled and levels are rising.
While the marshlands can be part of any water body ecosystem, they retain their significance even in the face of the water body's deterioration, according to experts.
Faiyaz Khudsar, scientist in charge of the Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) biodiversity parks programme, said it was critical to save such marshes and ecosystems. 'Freshwater marshes are shallow open-water wetlands and are dominated by herbaceous plants, particularly Phragmites, Typha, Sedges, Paspalum, and Polygonum, among others. Marshes are transitional areas between rivers or lakes and vast floodplains,' Khudsar said.
'Marshes are considered as highly productive ecosystems which help in trapping silt, mitigating flood, provide carbon sequestration and home for invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles birds and mammals, besides supporting many products valued by us, such as wild rice, and fish, and support ecotourism,' he said.
Reclassification, degradation
Jahangirpuri's plight is not isolated. Nearby, the Dheerpur marshes have suffered a similar fate. Once part of this larger marshy area until the Yamuna, much of Dheerpur has been filled, dyked, and repurposed for seasonal agriculture and infrastructure project. Bhalswa Lake, originally spanning 58 hectares, has shrunk to 34 hectares due to encroachments and pollution and so has the traditionally marshy area around it. Once known for its clear water and rich biodiversity, the lake now suffers from siltation, garbage dumping, and unchecked waste inflow from nearby dairies and households.
The Delhi Jal Board took over restoration efforts in 2019, but progress has been slow, with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) stepping in recently to clean the lake's banks.
During the visit, HT found encroachments right up to the lake's footsteps on the northern shore—on what would traditionally have been a marshy area, extending from the river. More plots with marshy grasses are being turned into new houses.
In August 2008, the Delhi government took a decisive step that sealed the fate of the Jahangirpuri marshes. Under the Draft Zonal Plan of the Master Plan 2021, it cleared the entire 300-acre marshland for residential use—a decision that reclassified the land, effectively sealing the marshes' decline. The move covered 100 acres owned by the Public Works Department (PWD) and Delhi Police, and another 200 acres belonging to the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).
The process of land-use change continued in subsequent years, further eroding the already diminished marshland. In February 2013, the DDA issued a public notice, proposing a change in land use for 19.33 acres of the marshes. This area, previously marked as 'recreational' and 'river and water body', was reclassified for residential development to accommodate housing for Delhi Police personnel. These successive decisions not only fragmented the marshes physically, but also symbolised the policy-driven retreat from wetland conservation.
Cog in the landscape
Experts stressed the importance of the marshy ecosystem, calling it as important as the Yamuna or the Aravallis, each of which supports its own flora and fauna.
Manu Bhatnagar, the principal director of the natural heritage division at INTACH says older maps clearly show the Jahangirpuri marshes to occupy a significantly large area, which gradually dwindled over the years due to encroachment and a change in land use.
'Even in the 1970s and early 80s, it occupied an area of around 5 square kilometres. In 2002, we were awarded a project by the Delhi Jal Board to try and utilise the marshes to extract drinking water—around five to six million gallons per day (MGD) in monsoon. At that time, the area had already reduced to around 1 sq km,' Bhatnagar said.
'From Outer Ring Road, we can still see remnants of these marshes, where tall grass patches are still visible. This is mainly Dheerpur and the Jahangpuri marshes, or what is left of it,' Bhatnagar said, adding the area was home to several insects and subsequently birds.
Blaming the city's growing population and general apathy for the destruction of the marshes, he said: 'Agencies and the administration did not think of marshes to be an important ecosystem. Rather, it was looked at as 'previous land' which could be utilised.'
Diwan Singh, an environmental activist working on the revival of wetlands and the Yamuna said that the Jahangirpuri and the marshy area around it began to change significantly in 1990. 'This area used to act as a sponge for the Yamuna and when the river would swell during the monsoon, it would soak this water up, thus not allowing further flooding ahead,' Singh said.
He stressed that the marsh ecosystem supports an array of life. 'From insects to frogs to mice to birds, there is a complete chain,' he said, adding while agencies still focus on water bodies, the importance of marshes is missed. 'In modern day context, they also filter pollutants,' he said.