New Delhi: The Delhi environment department has told National Green Tribunal (NGT) that demarcation of the Yamuna floodplain using billboards will start on Sept 15. Delhi Development Authority (DDA) will put up the billboards that will announce the floodplain area in the vicinity in order to check encroachments from sprouting there.Delhi govt made the reply to the tribunal after it took suo-motu cognisance of a TOI report, titled “Why Flooding has Forced DDA’s Master Plan Rethink”, published in Aug 2023.The tribunal formed a joint committee headed by the Delhi chief secretary to identify and demarcate the floodplain. In this case, the committee is expected to follow the River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) Authorities Order of 2016. The floodplain demarcation will be done following the one-in-100-year rule. According to this policy — using which the Ganga’s floodplain is also demarcated — the authorities will have to mark out the point up to which the river had expanded the most in the last 100 years. This will be treated as the point till which the Yamuna can reclaim land in the future. In addition to this, a 1-metre contour, or buffer strip, will have to be marked out. This entire area will have to be left free and will be designated the Yamuna floodplain. In Aug, the tribunal had said that the govt’s last affidavit had not addressed contour space. The NGT bench, headed by Justice Prakash Shrivastava, had remarked that while the affidavit had given details of the outermost boundary, it had omitted the necessary 1-metre contour.In its reply, Delhi govt said that on-ground demarcation would begin on Sept 1. This is the task that has now been pushed to Sept 15.Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has said that tenders for the demarcation were floated on Sept 1.
