Delhi Musings: Arvind Kejriwal now plans to demolish existing buildings at ITO to make way for a new CMO

The current dispensation in New Delhi, as is well known, is extremely adept at coming up with fancy names and abbreviations for projects (wish they could do more!). So, they came up with ‘oneword’ at COP26 at Glasgow in the context of climate - LIFE. A fancy abbreviation of “Lifestyle for Environment”.

The PM announced that India will achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2070. Critics be damned for there was no evidence of a teleprompter at Glasgow. Now to get to zero-carbon emissions it is a given that India’s carbon reducing capacity needs a major thrust and one of the key steps would be to increase the forest-cover. One understands that the aim is to cover one-third of India’s geographical area with trees and forest cover to get a LIFE!

Contrast this with what’s happening closer home in the NCR of Delhi. We have a body – National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs that prepares the NCR Regional Plan with the assistance of a Planning Committee and puts up the draft in public domain.

Consider what the Draft Regional Plan 2041 presented recently has camouflaged. This plan does not mention the Aravallis and tributaries of the Yamuna in ‘natural zones’. Yes, they have dropped Aravallis from areas under the Natural Conservation Zone! This, say experts, would leave out a large portion of the Arvallis from the protected zone and that will obviously have an adverse implication on the forest cover in Delhi and its surroundings.

We currently have the NCR Regional Plan 2021 which is in force since 2005. This plan protects almost the entire Aravalli range in Delhi and adjoining Haryana. No construction is allowed in the area. The same plan also protects some forest areas, Yamuna, major lakes such as Badkal, Suraj Kund and Damdama among others.

In the past we have had state governments trying to dilute the definition of the Aravallis. Haryana has the dubious distinction of claiming in the past that there are no Aravallis in Haryana as per its revenue records. Mercifully the NCRPB rejected that claim but then it was perhaps holding on the spirit of the Regional Plan 2021.

If a similar claim was to be made once the 2041 plan is approved then you can image what will replace the Aravallis, all that hype at Glasgow notwithstanding. If this is the way we move then one wonders what LIFE would be by the time the world assembles again for COP27 in Egypt?

Among a lot of Dilliwallahs, who have had issues with the ill-timed, ill-conceived Central Vista Project, our man AK was also one of them. Construction of such proportion was the bone of contention especially when Delhi was reeling under ‘severe’ AQI days. But then winds blow and tides change. Now we have Delhi government under the same AK that is planning to pull down the existing Vikas Bhawan, MSO and GST buildings at ITO and replace them with two multi-storey buildings.

Tipped to be eco-friendly structures, these new high-rise buildings will accommodate the offices of the Chief Minister and other cabinet ministers along with their battery of bureaucrats and babus. One can visualise our man AK standing on the terrace of one of these tall buildings and looking south towards the Central Vista and smile as the ultimate winner in this game of one-upmanship. He could even rub it in by calling these Aravalli One & Aravalli Two.

Fear of missing out – FOMO- is what Dilliwallahs are feeling right now. The 2022 Republic Day parade, if reports are to be believed, will not have a tableau from Delhi. One hopes that it has nothing to with the theme picked up this year: ‘Delhi - City of Hopes’.

One outlandish hypothesis could be that the body that approves has William Dalrymple fans on it and they didn’t want any change in that ‘City of Djinns’ label. Whatever the grounds of this reported rejection, it defies common sense. One wonders why can’t the concerned officials put their heads together and ensure that Delhi is represented since the parade takes place in Delhi? And please, we do not want to read more into this list of states who face similar rejection – Tamil Nadu, Wet Bengal, Kerala and Delhi.

Why can’t states take turns by rotation, with Delhi and central government’s tableau fixed? Why reject? Why not select?

(The writer blogs at stateofdelhi.in)

(This article was first published in National Herald on Sunday)