NEW DELHI: The Wetlands Authority of Delhi had shortlisted 20 water ecosystems in January and prioritised four of them for legal protection. A year has almost gone by since and not a single wetland has been notified as a protected area. Of the four wetlands — Sanjay Lake in Trilokpuri, Welcome Jheel in east Delhi, Tikri Khurd Lake in northwest Delhi and Smriti Van in Vasant Kunj — the first named was recommended for notification by the technical team on wetlands. For the remaining three, legal status and issues like encroachment and ownership were being looked into. The wetland authority had marked 1,040 for restoration in August last year, assigning them unique numbers according to the 16 government agencies they belonged to. When even the prioritised lakes haven’t been notified yet, the status of the rest can be only be conjectured about. According to the members of the technical team advising Delhi government in wetlands, they are yet to ascertain exactly how many of the 1,040 still exist due to lack of information, inter-departmental complexities and inadequate manpower. “A lot of data is to be confirmed. So legal vetting is still under process for three wetlands that had been prioritised,” said Dr Madhu Verma, chief economist at World Resource Institute, Delhi, and head of the technical committee on wetlands. “For now, the work on Sanjay Lake has been completed and we have recommended notifying it as a wetland to Delhi government.” Verma added, “Vetting is proving difficult because the parameters and data are sometimes contradictory. We have to coordinate with numerous agencies at a time when we have a staff shortage. Of the 1,040 wetlands on record, some have disappeared, others have been encroached upon. A few cannot be restored because parks, even residential complexes, have been built on them.” Dr Ritesh Kumar from Wetlands International, who is a member of Delhi Wetland Authority’s technical committee, revealed, “We recently made field visits to 3-4 wetlands. Beyond that, the technical committee hasn’t held any meetings. The panel has already recommended the notifying of Sanjay Lake, which the state government now needs to take forward.” There was no response from the wetland authority on the status of Sanjay Lake despite several attempts to reach the members. In January 2021, the authority first shortlisted 10 wetlands in the capital and later added 10 more for notification. In February, the lieutenant governor set a deadline of August for the recommendations to be sent to Delhi government and December for their notification as protected wetlands. The Union environment ministry had issued guidelines in 2020 on implementing the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017 to provide legal protection to the waterbodies and to prohibit acts like encroachment and dumping of waste and discharge of untreated effluents into them.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/in-troubled-waters-a-year-on-no-legal-tag-for-any-wetland/articleshow/96325786.cms