In the aftermath of devastating floods that again paralyzed Gurugram, environmentalist Vimlendu Jha has called for the immediate sacking of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) Commissioner. The city remains crippled each monsoon with massive waterlogging and infrastructure failures. Watch as expert reveal the ground realities behind this recurring civic crisis and demand accountability from city authorities.
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00:00Viewers, today I have with me environmentalist Vimlendu Jha. He's also the founder of Swecha
00:17NGO which is a daddy based NGO that works towards environmental and social issues.
00:22Thank you so much Mr Jha for speaking with Asianet News. Yes, welcome. Mr Jha I want to
00:28start talking about the challenges that the citizens of Gurugram are facing. You know we are
00:34hearing debates everywhere where people are talking about the menace which Gurugram is going through,
00:42water logging everywhere, traffic snarls, waste being dumped in open spaces, all of this is plaguing
00:50the city. Why don't we start by you talking a little bit about what are the root causes of the problem?
00:55So you know indeed Gurugram is going through a major crisis, a civic crisis, a climate crisis,
01:01a crisis of governance in that sense but also at the same time it's very important for me to state
01:07that it gets disproportionate attention because it's actually closer to Delhi. That's point number
01:12one and point number two is of course it's one of the richest cities uh that we actually have in the
01:17country and therefore well but irrespective when we look at Gurugram it's also a classic case of how
01:22development or urbanization should not have uh taken place as you know a city if you look at the first
01:28master plan that came in 1962 it clearly said uh about Gurgaon that you know it should not be inhabited
01:34primarily the the human settlement of this nature or this magnitude magnitude should not be allowed and
01:40primarily because of lack of underground water in that sense uh despite that we've seen uh you know
01:46indeed of course historically when you look at urbanization uh or the growth of of Gurgaon uh it's
01:51also the Maruti uh car factory that came here closer to this place and then after uh the land acquisition
01:59and a lot of private entities that came and actually set and set set up the entire city and then later
02:05now we have so many we have hundreds of fortune 500 countries headquartered in Gurgaon the main problem is
02:11that we we have not looked at the carrying capacity or the urbanization capacity uh of a city called
02:17Gurgaon uh or Gurugram now of course one thing that we've done very very beautifully changed the name
02:22uh but changing the name does not change the destiny uh of a city uh very very systematically so if you
02:28look at the water flow the topography of Gurugram uh Gurugram uh is is actually from from south to north so
02:36so the Aravali because it's also the extension of Aravali mountain range uh it it actually drains uh
02:42from the south to the north and north is where uh there's a there's a river which is uh which is now
02:48known as Najaf Garnala uh but you know so the entire thing uh the sahibi river in that sense so that's
02:54where the water was supposed to go but between this entire draining system or the channel of normal
03:00topography that that Gurgaon or this entire region had has been blocked by various constructions
03:06a lot of them uh indeed by the private developers but also by the government that two very very big
03:12roads that actually run here uh in in this path of water in that sense one is the mg road and the
03:18other is nh8 uh the national highway and of course now there's a private developer road called golf course
03:24road a lot of conversation of late has been about golf course road because it's it's a road where you
03:30know both sides of the road or both sides of this highway looking fancy fancy road there are
03:36there are apartments and condos that are worth 100 crore 200 crore 300 crore so one was that that we
03:43damaged the other is the deforestation with that with that that took place primarily to really
03:49uh have these these these building complexes and these builders uh that that came about and then
03:56there were a lot of these water bodies channels canals almost 60 of them that actually fed into this
04:04entire topography or in that sense of the drainage that we had and most of them have have actually
04:09been blocked so east to west there were these the water actually drained into this topography and
04:14that topography further drained into sahibi river and sahibi river is one of the main tribute trees as
04:20i said of yamuna and then this water actually went into yamuna so when you actually block the water
04:24resource water the natural channel which you might not be able to see it in summer months but that's that's the
04:30natural that's for that monsoon the nature had designed its own its own drainage system that's
04:36been completely abandoned the other is that when you look at the the drainage system the municipal
04:42drainage system there's hardly any that exists and one that exists still you know earlier guru
04:47gram was known for its fields and and that's where the water recharge is to happen so every time
04:52it rained a little extra of course these canals and these channels and uh and these drains actually
04:58took it to to yamuna uh for sahibi and then yamuna but there was also porous water recharge that
05:04happened now with so much of concretization that has taken place which has anyway blocked the natural
05:09flow or the drainage flow of water of rain water more so but also has stopped water from entering uh
05:17the ground and and therefore it actually stands stills and that's the reason why you actually see venice
05:22looking situation in times of monsoon uh mr ja one of the interesting things that i'm seeing uh when
05:29there are so many voices around this issue i'm seeing that there are a lot of people are pointing
05:34fingers at the bjp now you yourself said that uh the topography is as such that when when you have
05:40the arawali ridge at the south of gurugram from where the water actually goes down to the nazavgar jhil
05:47uh or the nala you know earlier we had this natural drainage system where we had catchment areas
05:54around the city and then the water would naturally go to the gene but now we have a lot of urbanization
06:01rapid urbanization but my question to you is that this urbanization i'm not trying to politicize the
06:07issue definitely bjp needs to be hold accountable in this because it's been in power for over a decade
06:13but my question to you is that all of this rapid urbanization that we're talking about it happened
06:18between 1980s to 2010s then is it fair that we are only you know pointing fingers at the bjp and not
06:26holding congress accountable because they are the two cards you're absolutely right uh you know so one is
06:32you're absolutely right uh but at the same time and therefore there are two things that is very very
06:36important one one is historical uh uh urbanization that has taken place because as i said the first
06:43master plan said one should gurugram should not urbanize and not urbanized at this scale in that
06:48sense and that urbanization has been across political parties irrespective of which political
06:53party came to power uh that urbanization has continued that started as i said as the congress was in power
06:59is when money sir is when the martu suzuki plant uh was actually uh set up and since after that is
07:06when we've seen subsequent uh more developments so-called developments and urbanization that has
07:12taken place so so for for sure urbanization or auction of land or the loot of natural resource
07:18and mindless development slash redevelopment of gurugram gurugram that has taken place is is party
07:26politics agnostic but at the same time if you look at you know governance governance is not only
07:32historical governance is also immediate government is the present day governance as in you know nobody
07:39would remember what delhi looked like two years ago when when it flooded and when arvin cage lival was
07:45the chief minister if he was to be blamed in 2023 and 2024 or perhaps more in 2020 because there was an
07:52unprecedented rain in 2023 as well similarly reikha gupta who is the current hcm has to be blamed so
07:58you know when you when when it's a governance is a continual continuous process it's not something that
08:05you do 20 years ago and fall asleep you have to really evolve yourself based on the herbal load the
08:12population load the waste load like for example if the current municipality is not taking care of the
08:19garbage or the municipal waste it is the current day municipal commissioner or the political
08:24dispensation that has to be held accountable and not uh uh pandit nehru in that sense or indira gandhi
08:30or rajiv gandhi or anyone or madmohan singh in that sense so governance is an is an everyday affair
08:35it's a continuous affair it's not something that is locked in history but indeed urbanization and this is
08:41not just applicable to guru graham uh gurugram in that sense the same thing as we look at today if himachal
08:48is flooded uh himachal actually has has has a congress government and the same kind of uh disaster is
08:55taking place uh in uttarakhand which is actually bjp government and then punjab uh you know houses have
09:02have have completely gone inundated and that's arm of the party government so so therefore it's a it's a
09:08party politics agnostic and it's a it's a climate change it's an era where we're looking at intensity and
09:15frequency of climate change has increased and people in power irrespective of their political
09:21ideology and the color of their flag they don't care and they haven't cared or they haven't even
09:26taken into account uh of the the new reality or the new normal for climate change and that's the reason
09:33why you see these these events which is very easy to pass as climate event but indeed their climate event
09:40but their effect the reason why they're happening and the reason why they're happening so aggressively
09:46and so violently uh and again and again is because of two things uh the man-made uh interventions and
09:54the lack of planning and governance uh in in conceptualizing and executing these these large
10:00scale projects or townships including guru graham the way we are looking at it do we actually need so
10:05many buildings do we really need so many fancy roads someone someone you know i was doing a show
10:10yesterday on on another tv channel and and someone a bureaucrat said that a lot of times citizens get
10:17to see a flyover and they celebrate and clap for a flyover a drainage system is not visible and therefore
10:23nobody asks for it i don't think that's that's true and that could partially be true that you know the
10:29the enigma of the the high rise the visible the twinkling the shining but the the the backboard
10:36or the foundation of a city is its quality of water its quality of drainage system it's up its waste
10:42disposal system all of this is what composite together is what a city should be known for right
10:48and i think very rightly said i think a decade is a long time to be able to tackle all of these issues
10:54uh moving forward mr jai i want to point out uh to a decision which was taken by haryana government
11:00where on 18th of august they defined the definition of what constitutes a forest and there in one of the
11:07points it mentions that it needs to be 40 percent of canopy density now given the fact that arawali
11:14vegetation uh only receives very less rainfall i mean around 300 millimeter uh despite the fact that we have
11:22gurugram where only even after a little bit of rain we have all these water logging issues and all of
11:27that but arawali vegetation it receives very less rainfall if you go into the facts and then you cannot
11:34expect such a density to be able to declare a patch of land as a forest then don't you think that there
11:40is an issue here because otherwise you will go and say okay this does not constitute a forest and then
11:45so we are able to you know uh take it out absolutely heena so you know there's a lot of opposition to that
11:51to that so-called definition of punjab uh and haryana uh government and right now this is also where
11:58we're looking at based on that one classification or new so-called definition there will be a lot of
12:04land grab because forest when you declare something a forest that also restrains both government and
12:09private uh leasing of land or buying of land or construction in the forest uh area and when you
12:16suddenly and that's where you know i i always say that there are two forms of corruption
12:20one indeed is transactional corruption that we always see which is where you pay money uh to
12:25break a law and the other form of corruption is collusion form of corruption when you change the
12:31law itself when you change the definition and you start saying that oh well this is not even a tree
12:36or this is not even a forest or perhaps this this is not even uh you know a human being in that sense
12:42uh uh lightly speaking so indeed what we've seen is uh we've seen the laws the conservation laws the
12:51forest laws uh the here we see the definition itself is changing and that's where that's the root cause of
12:57a lot of disasters that we are actually seeing in in our urban areas uh we've seen the same thing in
13:02char dham road project how without taking an environmental impact assessment without doing any environmental impact
13:07assessment that is required for a road more than 100 kilometers this was a 900 kilometer road but was
13:13split into 53 pieces uh so that they don't need to take uh an environmental clearance in that sense so
13:20we've seen these shortcuts a lot of that is done uh in the name of greater common good we actually say
13:26oh well this is for public this road that is being built or perhaps this forest that is being cleared
13:31we don't realize that all of the work that we did all the damage that we've done in the last 30 40 years
13:38is showing up as a result in climate events the frequency and intensity intensity of it already and
13:45whatever if you continue to do this it's only in the next 20 30 years that half of himalayas will be
13:51will be completely gone uh you know looking at gurgaon gurgaon might have a great skyline but if if if the
13:59if the world is gone if our if our air quality is is done with if everyone right now the report says
14:05that you lose eight years uh of your life or eight and a half years of your life if you live in delhi
14:10ncr if the situation continues i'm sure in 10 years there'll be a report that will say that you are
14:15going to lose 30 years of your life and then there'll be a report if we still continue like this will be
14:20a report that that will say that you will die if you live in this city so if we are if we are imagining
14:25dead cities at the cost of being prosperous and pompous and fancy uh then god save us right and
14:33mr do you think that we need to take a legal route in this because mcd seems to be not doing anything
14:41every monsoon season we have the same situation in gurugram so do you think uh i would even ask you uh
14:47should supreme court also you know go ahead and take a sumo to cognizance because uh not to forget that
14:53in the stray dog issue there was no death in delhi still um you know major verdict was passed and then
14:59later on it was a state that's different matter but don't you think that in this particular case
15:03when people are dying of electrocution don't you think that the supreme court needs to take a sumo to
15:08cognizance of this see ideally uh it's not our space to comment on what should supreme court think
15:14is a sumoto appropriate case indeed one can comment that yes if stray dogs were such a menace why can't
15:21life taking highways and devastation work that you've actually done the government is doing but
15:26at the same time we need to remember that governance is not the responsibility of the courts of our
15:30country governance is at the end of the day the responsibility of the legislature and the
15:35executive in that sense uh but yes as why not and why should it only take care and take sumoto why
15:42should supreme court only take sumoto cognizance of a rich person or a rich city it should take
15:47cognizance of also why did himachal get flooded why why hundreds of houses in manali uh got submerged
15:55in river bias or what happened in dharali where till date we don't even know how many people died other
16:01than the five that were reported on day one since after that there's not even a report of injury after
16:07such a such a big big disaster that took place so indeed uh it's high time that the courts uh come in
16:14but that's also very slightly dangerous to really allow courts of our country to enter into the
16:21mainstream realm of governance is very very risky in the long run still want to talk about the
16:26accountability where does it lie i mean um i was reading uh one of the comments by an expert who said
16:33that there are so many agencies on ground that sometimes they dodge accountability and they evade the
16:39responsibility and just blame the other one that this does not come in our purview uh this uh this
16:44is not something that we take care of so do you think because i also you know earlier spoke about
16:49this issue in terms of defense sector that why can't we have a central agency so that people can go to
16:53that central agency and talk to them tell them their issues and we have one person or one agency to be
16:59hold accountable absolutely so mcg here which is municipal council uh of gurgaon which is similar to what
17:06mcd is in delhi they are the ones that are supposed to be responsible for governance indeed in cities
17:12like this when you have population which goes into 10 million and 20 million both and talk about delhi
17:17uh and gurgaon and also the fact that gurgaon faridabad uh noida delhi all of that also is the is the
17:23composite ncr in that sense or uh and therefore there's greater retention both media and and policy
17:31attention that is there uh you know we've been saying a lot of times that we need to have a regional
17:36plan and not the political boundary plan because you know if at the end of the day delhi's air has
17:41to be improved it has to be done together it cannot just be delhi's air it also has to be gurgaon's air
17:48air and noida's air similarly when you look at a watershed approach uh at the end of the day you
17:54know we're talking about the entire drainage of arawali and arawali that starts uh you know in in in
18:00gujarat uh ahmedabad and then the last point the tip of it is is actually yamuna uh which is in
18:08north delhi the the visible arawali range that we talk about and therefore it needs to have a shared
18:14understanding of conservation or understanding of arawali and its drainage system because we all
18:19might have created these lines and and divided people based on linguistics but linguistic cannot
18:25just be the only reason to divide states uh so therefore we do need a regional plan we need a
18:30regional plan for climate mitigation for heat wave mitigation and when i say climate it includes heat
18:35it includes uh drought it includes cloudburst and and flash floods but also looking at the modern day
18:43uh environmental challenge uh of waste segregation or waste disposal both at the at the local uh household
18:52level or at the municipal level and similarly the drainage system so i think uh at this moment
18:57indeed the first thing should be and we don't never hear it the mcg commissioner should be should
19:04be sacked the entire team that supposedly was actually desilting the drains or was responsible for
19:11taking care of the drainage system or of the waste system because all around gurgaon i live in gurgaon
19:17and in just two kilometer radius from where i live the entire area is a mess and i i live in somewhat
19:24uh a privileged uh neighborhood and still there are heaps of garbage you know it gets cleaned in the
19:30morning and uh at in the evening and by morning you see construction garbage and and factory waste and
19:37municipal waste dumped on the road and there's no accountability no one is held responsible for this so
19:43in this i think the heads need to roll heads need to roll in terms of the bureaucracy the bureaucrats
19:50our taxpayers money is going into something it's not as if you're asking for some charitable action by
19:56the state state is the count they are elected the person who actually sits at the helm the senior is
20:02officer perhaps who would be the mcg commissioner here and his entire team members they should be held
20:08responsible for this flood-like situation uh that that we actually seen in gurgaon and children getting
20:15illocuted you know people losing their car their livelihood uh and all in all of this it's it's an
20:21ecological issue and also an economic issue loss we are talking about one of the prosperous towns this is
20:27where as i earlier said fortune 500 companies are headquartered the india headquarters are in gurgaon and
20:33we have such a sad sinking state of affairs uh just final closing question mr jha what do we do when
20:40these officials who actually allot lands to people uh you know illegal construction happen when they are
20:47hand in glove with the land mafia i mean uh we have seen so many stories coming out of gurgaon where we
20:53see that farmers are being asked to sell their lands uh to the government in the garb of government
20:59acquisition and then builders uh get this particular land and then they build uh buildings which are
21:05worth crores of rupees uh so what do we do because yes mcg commissioner needs to be hold accountable he
21:12needs to be sacked immediately because this is the state of affairs of gurugram but do you think that
21:17police also needs to come in place in the picture uh to arrest all these people who are you know running
21:24these land mafias every stakeholder here as we all know what program has become it's it's uh it's a
21:33reality mafia the the the property mafia runs the entire entire program in that sense where they are
21:40perhaps some builders would be more powerful and more and wealthier than the municipality in that sense
21:47and a lot of them have been able to become wealthier because they've changed the rules or there's been
21:52connivance with the authorities and in authority indeed there are several authorities there's a
21:57there's a clearance for construction authority there's a completion certificate authority there's a
22:02there's an environmental clearance authority and indeed there's police which is which is also a part
22:07of this entire network uh in that sense so this nexus has to break but that can only happen when we
22:14have a consolidated public uh you know outcry for this there's also a courts of our country that needs
22:20to take cognizance that how are these buildings allowed and and i'm of a very very strong opinion
22:26that you know a lot of times we can't we can't say everything as fait accompli that's too late
22:32buildings have come up now what to do no to you know india is not something india doesn't have an
22:37expiry date of of 2050 or 2070 our our our great great grandchildren and our generations are going to
22:44live on live in this country for 400 500 or 4 000 years uh and for that that intergenerational wealth
22:52or intergenerational resource needs to be maintained and we have to be we have to be held accountable we
22:58have to be accountable ourselves and also hold accountable people who are taking away the the water
23:05the land the force not just from us in our own lifetime but from our our our our coming generations
23:12we're going to lose because of this entire mafia giri that is going on right um thank you so much
23:17mr john i think we as people because journalists will keep on asking these questions and people
23:24like you who are working on ground will continue to give their insights but the issue is that it only
23:29happens in the month of monsoon and soon you know when the winter will arrive we'll start talking about
23:33pollution so i hope that we can we are able to break from this cycle and be able to actually bring
23:40about a reform thank you so much once again mr java for speaking with asian at least thank you
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