NGT: Yamuna Floodplain Encroachment Continues Despite Orders

NGT orders calling for action against Yamuna floodplain encroachments go unheeded

While the National Green Tribunal and the Delhi High Court have issued repeated orders for disposal of illegal encroachments on the Yamuna floodplain, such encroachments are seen rearing their heads yet again. Recent developments in the case reveal this.

While deciding a case in 2019 to issue directions for removal of the encroachment from the floodplain, NGT raised questions over the delay in its order's implementation. On February 6, 2025, NGT Chairman Justice Prakash Shrivastava and the members of the tribunal noted their observations which stated that more than five years had already gone by since its 2019 order. All those years passed with hardly any effective effort to remove such encroachment.

The NGT has said that DDA had not complied in totality with the earlier orders that included removing illegal constructions and encroachments along the banks of Yamuna in Delhi. Apart from NGT orders, a division bench of the Delhi High Court has given its own direction in April 2024, which is that DDA along with other concerned authorities are directed to act against floodplain encroachments.

The same month, a major order was also issued by the division bench of the High Court directing the Vice-Chairman of the DDA to clear all the illegal constructions on the Yamuna banks. Furthermore, the Supreme Court had also expressed its concern over the environmental implications of these encroachments and had agreed with the tribunal that the floodplain needs to be kept free for public and ecological reasons in January 2024.

Despite these multiple directives from the NGT, Delhi High Court, and the Supreme Court, the situation on the ground has not improved with illegal structures still standing on the river's floodplain. The NGT dismissed the DDA's argument that it had not been able to execute these orders due to an interim order passed by the High Court. The tribunal had indicated that the DDA had failed to file an appeal against the interim order-one of the reasons mainly advanced by the agency for non-compliance.

Conclusion:It was further noted by the NGT that DDA had not only failed to comply with the main order of October 2024, wherein it was directed to furnish details regarding encroachments but also failed to submit data regarding the number of encroachments on the flood plain, including the status of encroachments in Majnu Ka Tila, whose encroachment issue has long been in settlements. The tribunal was also requested to get the figure of refugee families from Pakistan, who had been settled in Majnu Ka Tila area. However, DDA had not provided any such information, which only added further to concern the tribunal that issues had not moved an inch.In such continued grievances, the NGT has again provided four weeks to the DDA to present an affidavit about their activities which bring them to terms with earlier orders and directions by the courts. The case stands posted for further hearing on 4 April, 2025.