Rampant construction is on at the southern Ridge near Vasant Kunj
Rampant construction is on at the southern Ridge near Vasant Kunju00a0
To beat the blues of the day and the stress accumulated over a full day's work, Akash Wadhwa took a deliberate wrong turn on his way to home from office.
To the tune of Welcome to the hotel California Such a lovely place... Akash a software engineer was driving through the serpentine road amidst the virgin forests of the southern Ridge. Suddenly concrete and metal hit him. Monstrous bulldozers, steel pipes and a huge barren wasteland in the middle of lush green forests.u00a0
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Charge of the construction brigade: A bulldozer at the construction site inside southern Ridge near Vasant Kunj. Contrary to DDA claims, work is on to lay a pipeline pic/mid-day |
The Ridge, which is home to rare species of hyena, Siberian birds and black buck, is a protected forest and construction of any kind is prohibited by law. His curiosity got better of him and Akash got down from his car and went in. What he saw shocked him.
Akash called up MiD DAY and the correspondents went more than 2 km inside the jungle to run a reality check. The area lies camouflaged by the jungle and is situated opposite The Energy Research Institute building. The Master Plan of Delhi mentions 7,777 hectares as notified Ridge. This includes the Northern, Central, South-Central (Sanjay Van) and Southern (Bhatti mine area) belt.
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The land has been in the headlines when several malls were coming up in the Vasant Kunj area. The Army has 330 hectare of the land in the area while the Delhi Development Authority owns 315 hectares.
MiD DAY talked to the locals and found the construction was on for the past some time. "The forest is full of rare species of animals and the construction poses a big danger to the bio-diversity in the area. As far as my information goes, the Madhya Pradesh government is constructing its guesthouse on plot number 12," said Sham Singh, who lives nearby.
Forest protection bodies of Delhi are unaware of the development. Professor Vikram Soni of Ridge Bachao Aandolan said, "This is clear violation of the Master Plan. The Army has been fined once for construction in the ride area in 2004. This particular stretch of the southern ridge is home to some rare species of animals."
(Ab)RidgeSpread over almost 7,800 hectares, the Ridge is an extension of the Aravalli Hills and stretches from South Delhi, branching out in places and tapering off near the west bank of the Yamuna. The Ridge is divided into four zones the southern ridge, the south central ridge, the central or the new ridge, and the northern ridge. The Ridge is rapidly shrinking, falling prey to construction activities, conversion of forests to parklands, encroachments and garbage dumping. A large portion of the Ridge was declared protected.
