Dear Delhi Govt, HC Order On Felling Trees Calls for Introspection

Vimlendu Jha speaks on the proposed felling of over 16,000 trees in South Delhi.

Trees have been felled in South Delhi’s Netaji Nagar as a part of redevelopment of central government accommodations.

(Photo: Shorbori Purkayastha/The Quint)

Video Editor: Vishal Kumar

The lord will keep us alive, for now!

The government proposes to fell 16,780 trees in South Delhi to redevelop 7 colonies so as to accommodate government officials. The campaign against felling of trees in Delhi has gained adequate momentum in the last month and a half, with citizens hitting the streets of the capital, seen hugging and climbing the trees of the ‘redevelopment’ neighbourhood – all the visuals hitting national as well as international media. Difficult to establish whether it was this ground swell or their judicial wisdom, tree felling in Delhi has been banned till further orders by our honourable high court. For now, trees can stay!

The 4 July order of the Delhi High Court, passed by Acting Chief Justice of the High Court Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar, is in many ways a landmark order as it poses some very existential questions to our government and its plan for the country – or in this case the capital Delhi – questioning the very definition of the expressions ‘development’ and ‘redevelopment’.

Let us go through the 4 July order and understand what it implies:

Point 8 of the order states: “..the Government of NCT of Delhi shall place all material before this court as to how equivalence is drawn between one fully grown tree and a sapling.”

A full grown tree is an ecosystem in itself, with the carbon it holds, the dust it absorbs, the ground water it recharges, being a habitat for birds and other beings, and being a source of nourishment for many living beings. A sapling is just a numerical evidence of compensation – no guarantee whether it will survive, no contribution to the overall local ecology for another decade or two. That hope of balance after a decade or two also rests on the fact that ‘compensatory afforestation’ is actually carried out, as it is claimed.

Compensatory afforestation cannot be taken at its face value, for it is one of the worst policies conceived and executed on the ground since its inception in 1980. Forest Conservation Act(FCA) of 1980 allows forest land to be diverted for ‘development’ projects. Since then, vast stretches of forestland have been compromised for projects such as mining, infrastructure, refinery etc.

In many cases ‘ghost plantation’ has been carried out, where compensatory afforestation has only happened on paper and all the funds allocated for it has been siphoned off. As recent as April this year, the Supreme Court reprimanded the central government for misusing Rs 90,000 crore collected as Compensatory Afforestation Fund, and spending it on building roads and fixing street lights rather than afforestation activities as it was meant to be spent on.

Satellite imagery of many of the sites where the so called compensatory afforestation has taken place reveals that a natural forest has been destroyed in the garb of the ‘Forest Conservation Act’ and no plantation activity has taken place at all.

In this particular ‘redevelopment’ project too, despite the National Green Tribunal (NGT) laying down clear conditions that no tree be felled before compensatory afforestation, no compensatory afforestation was carried out against the felling in Netaji Nagar and other areas. In Punjab, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund was spent on litigation expenses of the government. This only establishes how the government is the biggest violator of its own laws and policies.

The other aspect is the species of the tree that is cut and the species of the sapling planted. The government has felled full-grown native trees like Peepal, Kachnar, Neem and others in East Kidwai Nagar and compensated it by planting varieties of Palm, Champa and other decorative species.

It would be interesting to read the response from the government, on the equivalence drawn between a tree and a sapling – there is actually none.

Point no. 9 of the order states: “The Union of India and Delhi Development Authority shall explain the source of water wherefrom these trees (Court referring to the saplings) would be nurtured and watered.”

Delhi’s water situation is one of the worst in the country. We might not realise it but the same government has informed us through Central Ground Water Board as recently as last month that 90% of ground water in Delhi is in critical condition.

The other primary source of water in Delhi, River Yamuna, is also at its worst condition due to lack of minimum flow in the river and also the contamination of the River. As per Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), water quality of Yamuna is of E Class, which means it’s not even fit for animal bathing, its only fit for industrial cooling.

Given the deficit in demand and supply of water in Delhi, already accepted by the government departments and Niti Aayog, the court has posed a very critical question: Where is the water? While the city inches close to the ‘Cape Town’ phenomenon – running out of water by 2020 – this haphazard ‘redevelopment’ adds to the stress to its finite and limited water resources.

One has to wait and see what the government says, if they have plans to bring water from Mars for this ‘redevelopment’ project and its compensatory afforestation trees!

Point no. 10 of the order states: “DDA shall explain…making provisions for water and electricity, solid waste generated and its management, sewage generated and managed…”

As established earlier, Delhi’s water supply is already in a critical condition. With regard to electricity, as recent as 28 June there was an acute power crisis in Delhi, with coal left for just 1.5 days.

Delhi’s power demand is approximately 6,000 MW per day and 80% of its electricity comes from the coal-fired plants in Badarpur, Dadri, Jhajjar and other coal fired plants. In the month of May, as per the government data, there was a daily shortfall of approximately 970 MW. Given the existing deficit, we await a response from the government explaining how they will power these commercial blocks and modern housing complexes.

Similarly, waste management in Delhi is in a sorry state and we have seen all the three landfills overflowing and already saturated and expired. Delhi generates over 9,000 metric tonnes of garbage every day, we have run out of space to ‘dump’ our solid waste.

Has the ‘redevelopment’ plan considered where will all the waste go? Same applies to all the sewage that will be generated, with most of our sewage treatment plants severely paralysed, one of the reasons why Yamuna is turned into a sewer too.

As stated by the Court, this entire plan is in violation of the Master Plan of Delhi, which was changed retrospectively, not accounting for natural resources, traffic and overall densification of Delhi.

Point no 11 states: “The DDA shall also explain as to how the user of a residential area (Kidwai Nagar), is changed to commercial.”

All the public posturing of the government with regard to this ‘redevelopment’ project has been around deficit of 39,000 houses in Delhi for government officials. One would think that perhaps it is some sort of a pressing need and government in its limited wisdom and compulsion, made this difficult choice of ‘redevelopment’. A close look at all the documents available in public domain with regard to this project busts this myth and clearly positions this entire project conceived primarily for commercial interests rather than housing need.

East Kidwai Nagar in question has these buildings erected on the ring road, primarily for offices, contrary to the primary rationale of the project being residential. As per the government documents, Nairoji Nagar redevelopment plan has zero residential housing, hundred percent commercial buildings (WTC). Similarly in Sarojini Nagar, government plans to allocate almost 50% of the area for commercial activities.

Clearly it’s not a redevelopment project to compensate for the deficit in housing for government officials, it’s a project furthering commercial interests. This entire project is sanctioned for over Rs 32,000 crore, public money used to plunder public resources.

I have always taken judicial intervention in the matters of day to day governance with a pinch of worry, for in the short run it brings immediate relief and sometimes closure, but in the long run it impedes upon two of the strongest institutions of our country, the legislature and the executive. Judicial activism or overreach as some may call it, dare anyone call them ‘judicial naxals’, has in many ways defined the policy and event landscape of this country in recent times. And then there are good judges and bad judges!

(Vimlendu Jha is a social and environmental activist. He tweets at @vimlendu. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)