Noida: District admin asks officials to speed up beautification of ponds

Officials have been directed to provide the current status of ponds and lakes in the district while orders have also been issued to expedite disposal of pending cases of encroachments on water bodies

Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate Manish Kumar Verma, while reviewing the current status of ponds and lakes in the district on Wednesday, directed officials to ensure speedy disposal of pending cases related to encroachment on ponds and lakes at the tehsil and authority level and to quickly finish the beautification work on ponds.

Information about ponds and lakes with an area of 2.25 hectares or more has been received from authorities, said divisional forest officer PK Srivastava. (HT Photo)

Officials have also been directed to provide the latest information on the status of ponds/lakes in the district so that, the report could be sent to Uttar Pradesh government to include these water bodies in the list of registered ponds/wetlands.

“The officials have been directed to provide the current status of ponds and lakes in the district while orders have also been issued to expedite disposal of pending cases of encroachments on water bodies. The data is crucial in assessing our progress and it has to be sent to the state government,” said DM Verma.

Divisional forest officer PK Srivastava said, “Information about ponds and lakes with an area of 2.25 hectares or more has been received from authorities concerned and a report on action taken would be prepared and made available soon. The document will be provided to the state wetland authority for notifying these water bodies under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management Rules), 2017.”

To be sure, only 34 cases of encroachment on water bodies are pending in Dadri while all encroachers in Noida (Sadar) and Jewar, registered under the Section 67 of the UP Revenue Code, have been served notices to remove their encroachments.

Of the 293 waterbodies in Jewar, 29 have been reeling under encroachments. A total of 168 cases were registered under the Section 67 of the UP Revenue Code Rules, 2016. In Noida, there are total of 245 water bodies and of these, 48 have been encroached on. As many as 353 cases were registered there.

Of the total 480 waterbodies in Dadri, 134 have been encroached on and 283 cases were registered. As many as 34 cases are currently pending, said officials.