Spanner in the works For Delhi Accommodation!

Not many days left for the Commonwealth Games is Delhi, yet there is no sign of any progress made at the Games Village site on the eastern side of the Yamuna.

A string of court cases and one controversy after another have slowed the pace of construction of residential and commercial units at the site. There hasn’t been any buzz about an alternative site.

After resolving a row with the Akshardham Temple authorities, who had objected to the upcoming construction on the two proposed sites adjacent to the shrine, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has now been up against the green buffs.
The environmentalists, under the banner of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan (YJA) of Magsaysay Award winner Rajinder Singh, had filed a writ petition in the court against the proposed Games Village.

The move has brought the project to a near-halt.

If the court rejects the DDA’s claims at the eleventh hour, there won’t be enough time left to shift to another site. To top it up, neither the DDA nor the planners have identified alternative sites.

Last month saw four hearings involving the DDA and YJA, with the fifth one coming up on Tuesday.

The DDA has other worries, too. On Monday, the infrastructure coordination committee will assess the state of work and there is not enough to show except for some piling work.


What about an alternative site? “Where is the time for that? Even if we identify a site today, it will take three months to publicise the land use change and another six months to acquire environmental clearance. Three more months will go into designing the new site plan. Can a Games Village be constructed in a year? The deadline to wrap up construction is December 2009,” he said.

Taking a dig at the environmentalists, the engineer asked, “Where were they when the Games Village site was decided in 2003? Why are they here four years later in 2007?’’
Environmental activists have pitched the protest tent near the site citing that the constructions would harm the fragile ecology of the Yamuna.

“Did the DDA do anything before October 2006? They went to the ministry of environment and forests for approval of the plan not before October last year. It was rejected outright in November and they were told in December to go for temporary structures if there was no other option,” YJA convenor Manoj Mishra said.

“No one knows what occurred between December 2006 and April 2007. Why did the environment ministry give in to pressure from the DDA and the urban development ministry and allowed construction of highrises on the river bed?” he asked.
A.K. Gosain, the IIT Delhi professor who is a member of the expert appraisal committee that rejected the site, said: “It violates the basic regulations of wetlands and floodplains.’’ Gosain has quit the committee.


So all is set for a major chaos for accommodation for the Commonwealth games in Delhi 2010.

India, especially the Delhi government has to wake up to the fact that they cannot construct anything in the vicinity of Yamuna - given its fragile eco-system.