GMDA’s plan to restore Badshahpur drain challenged in NGT

The GMDA plans to concretise the Badshahpur drain network and box it using Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) pipes by July 2019. Environmentalists have maintained that this move violates previous NGT orders meant to protect the city’s stormwater drains and is environmentally unsound.

A National Green Tribunal (NGT) bench on Tuesday accepted a miscellaneous application (MA) challenging the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority’s (GMDA) action plan to restore the Badshahpur drain network.

A view of Badshapur drain, in Gurugram. The GMDA plans to concretise the drain and boxing it using Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) pipes by July 2019. (Parveen Kumar/ HT File)

According to the plan, the authority will spend an estimated Rs 4 crore on concretising the drain and boxing it using Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) pipes by July 2019. Environmentalists have maintained that this move violates previous NGT orders meant to protect the city’s stormwater drains and is environmentally unsound.

The MA was submitted as a part of the ongoing legal battle between the GMDA and Haryali Welfare Society, which had initiated a request for restoration of the 29-kilometre Badshahpur drain network, which serves as the city’s arterial stormwater drain.

In December, the same NGT bench had ordered the removal of encroachments from the space of the drain in Gwal Pahari, as part of these proceedings. Haryali Welfare Society has previously also sent legal notices to the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram and Haryana Shahri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) regarding the concretisation of the drain, which has been going on since 2017.

“What is ironic here is that the GMDA’S plan itself is in response to previous NGT orders from 2016 and 2018, in which the court clearly stated that stormwater drains cannot be concretised,” said Vaishali Rana Chandra, environmentalist, who is one of the deponents in the MA.

However, the plan now seems to be in contravention of the very orders that spawned it, she added.

The GMDA, according to its action plan, intends to concretise about 25 kilometres of the drain and contain it within RCC pipes of 1000mm in diameter (or less, at some spots). The action plan (a copy of which is available on the GMDA website) details how and where concretisation work will be carried out, and shows that only seven kilometres will be left open in the form of a natural drain.

“The original drain is as wide as 40 metres in some places, and even the ministry of environment has acknowledged this in previous reports. Yet, agencies such as the HSVP, MCG, and now, the GMDA, are hell bent on closing up the drain,” said Sharmila Kaushik, another deponent.

According to environmentalists, not only will this harm the drain’s groundwater recharge capacity, as water cannot percolate through pipes and concrete, but also lead to urban floods. Backflow from the Badshahpur drain network was identified as one of the key causes for 2016’s infamous ‘Gurujam’.

Lalit Arora, chief engineer, GMDA, who oversaw the drafting of the plan, had not yet received a copy of the MA on Wednesday, but clarified that the action plan would not be implemented without the NGT’S approval. “We were going to submit the proposed plan to the NGT to begin with, in response to a 2016 order by the same court relating to stormwater drains in Gurugram. We will comply with whatever the court decides,” he said.