- 5 months ago
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
00:16Swecha NGO which is a Delhi 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 Gurugam are facing. You know we are
00:34hearing debates everywhere where people are talking about the menace which Gurugam 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 Gurugam 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 that we actually have in the
01:17country and therefore well but irrespective when we look at Gurugam it's also a classic case of how
01:22development or urbanization should not have taken place. As you know a city if you look at the first
01:28master plan that came in 1962 it clearly said about Gurugam that you know it should not be inhabited
01:34primarily the human settlement of this nature or this magnitude should not be allowed and primarily
01:41because of lack of underground water in that sense. Despite that we've seen you know indeed of course
01:46historically when you look at urbanization or the growth of Gurugam it's also the Maruti car factory
01:54that came here closer to this place and then after the land acquisition and a lot of private
02:00entities that came and actually set up the entire city and then later now we have so many we have
02:06hundreds of fortune 500 countries headquartered in Gurugam. The main problem is that we have not looked at
02:12the carrying capacity or the urbanization capacity uh of a city called Gurugam or Gurugam now of course
02:19one thing that we've done very very beautifully changed the name but changing the name does not
02:24change the destiny uh of a city uh very very systematically so if you look at the water flow the
02:30topography of Gurugam uh Gurugam uh is is actually from from south to north so to Aravali because it's also the
02:38extension of Aravali mountain range uh it actually drains uh from the south to the north and north is
02:44where uh there's a there's a river which is uh which is now known as Najafgar Nala uh but you know so
02:51the entire thing uh the sahibi river in that sense so that's where the water was supposed to go but
02:56between this entire draining system or the channel of normal topography that that Gurugam or this entire
03:02region had has been blocked by various constructions a lot of them uh indeed by the private developers
03:10but also by the government the two very very big roads that actually run here uh in this path of
03:16water in that sense one is the mg road and the other is nh8 uh the national highway and of course
03:21now there's a private developer road called golf course road a lot of conversation of late has been
03:27about golf course road because it's it's a road where you know both sides of the road or both sides
03:32of this highway looking fancy fancy road there are there are apartments and condos that are worth 100
03:40crore 200 crore 300 crore so one was that that we damaged the other is the deforestation
03:46with that with that that took place primarily to really uh have these these these building complexes
03:52and these builders uh that that came about and then there were a lot of these water bodies channels
04:00canals almost 60 of them that actually fed into this entire topography or in that sense of the
04:06drainage that we had and most of them have have actually been blocked so east to west there were
04:11these the water actually drained into this topography and that topography further drained into sahibi
04:17river and sahibi river is one of the main tribute trees as i said of yamuna and then this water actually
04:22went into yamuna so when you actually block the water resource water the natural channel which you might not
04:28be able to see it in summer months but that's that's the natural that's for that monsoon the nature had
04:33designed its own its own drainage system that's been completely abandoned the other is that when
04:39you look at the the drainage system the municipal drainage system there's hardly any that exists and
04:45one that exists still you know earlier guru gram was known for its fields and and that's where the water
04:50recharge is to happen so every time it rained a little extra of course these canals and these channels and uh and these
04:58drains actually took it to to yamuna uh first sahibi and then yamuna but there was also porous water
05:04recharge that happened now with so much of concretization that has taken place which has anyway
05:08blocked the natural flow or the drainage flow of water of rain water more so but also has stopped water
05:16from entering uh the ground and and therefore it actually stands stills and that's the reason why
05:21you actually see venice looking situation in times of monsoon uh mr ja one of the interesting things
05:28that i'm seeing uh when there are so many voices around this issue i'm seeing that there are a lot
05:33of people are pointing fingers at the bjp now you yourself said that uh the topography is as such that
05:40when you have the arawali ridge at the south of gurugram from where the water actually goes down to the
05:45the nazafgar jheel uh or the nala you know earlier we had this natural drainage system where we had
05:53catchment areas around the city and then the water would naturally go to the gene but now we have a lot
06:00of urbanization rapid urbanization but my question to you is that this urbanization i'm not trying to
06:07politicize the issue definitely bjp needs to be hold accountable in this because it's been in power for
06:13over a decade but my question to you is that all of this rapid urbanization that we're talking about
06:18it happened between 1980s to 2010s then is it fair that we are only you know pointing fingers at the
06:25bjp and not holding congress accountable because they have the two cards you're absolutely right uh
06:31you know so one is you're absolutely right uh but at the same time and therefore there are two things
06:36that is very very important one one is historical uh uh urbanization that has taken place because as i
06:42said the first master plan said one shouldn't gurugram should not urbanize and not urbanized at this
06:47scale in that sense and that urbanization has been across political parties irrespective of which
06:53political party came to power uh that urbanization has continued that started as i said as the congress
06:58was in power is when manisar is when the martu suzuki plant uh was actually uh set up and since after
07:06that is when we've seen subsequent uh more developments so-called developments and urbanization that
07:12has taken 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 that has taken place is is party politics
07:26agnostic but at the same time if you look at you know governance governance is not only historical
07:33governance is also immediate government is the present day governance as in you know nobody would
07:39remember what delhi looked like two years ago when when it flooded and when arvin cage lival was the
07:45chief 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 rekhagutta who is the current hcm has to be blamed so you know
07:58when you when when it's a governance is a continual continuous process it's not something that you do 20
08:06years ago and fall asleep you have to really evolve yourself based on the herbal load the population
08:13load the waste load like for example if the current municipality is not taking care of the garbage or
08:19the municipal waste it is the current day municipal commissioner or the political dispensation that has
08:25to be held accountable and not uh uh pandit nehru in that sense or indira gandhi or rajiv gandhi or anyone
08:32or mad mohan singh in that sense so governance is an is an everyday affair it's a continuous affair it's
08:37not something that is locked in history but indeed urbanization and this is not just applicable to
08:43guru graham uh guru graham in that sense the same thing as we look at today if himachal is flooded uh
08:49himachal actually has has has a congress government and the same kind of uh disaster is taking place uh in
08:56uttarakhand which is actually bjp government and then punjab uh you know houses have have have completely
09:03gone inundated and that's arm of the party government so so therefore it's a it's a party
09:08politics 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 ideology and
09:22the color of their flag they don't care and they haven't cared or they haven't even taken into
09:27account uh of the the new reality or the new normal for climate change and that's the reason why you
09:33see these these events which is very easy to pass as climate event but indeed their climate event but
09:40their effect the reason why they're happening and the reason why they're happening so aggressively and so
09:46violently uh and again and again is because of two things uh the man-made uh interventions and the
09:55lack of planning and governance uh in in conceptualizing and executing these these large-scale projects or
10:01townships including gurugram the way we are looking at it do we actually need so many buildings do we
10:07really need so many fancy roads someone someone you know i was doing a show yesterday on on another tv
10:12channel and and someone a bureaucrat said that a lot of times citizens get to see a flyover and they
10:18celebrate and clap for a flyover a drainage system is not visible and therefore nobody asks for it
10:25i don't think that's that's true and that could partially be true that you know the enigma of the the
10:31high-rise the visible the twinkling the shining but the the the backboard or the foundation of a city
10:37is its quality of water its quality of drainage system it's up its waste disposal system all of
10:44this is what composite together is what a city should be known for right and i think very rightly
10:50said i think a decade is a long time to be able to tackle all of these issues uh moving forward mr jai
10:55i want to point out uh to a decision which was taken by haryana government where on 18th of august they
11:01defined the definition of what constitutes a forest and there in one of the uh points it mentions that
11:08it needs to be 40 percent of canopy density now given the fact that aravli vegetation uh only receives
11:16very less rainfall i mean around 300 millimeter uh despite the fact that we have gurugram where only
11:23even after a little bit of rain we have all these water logging issues and all of that but aravli
11:29vegetation it receives very less rainfall if you go into the facts and then you cannot expect such a
11:35density to be able to declare a patch of land as a forest then don't you think that there is an issue
11:40here because otherwise you will go and say okay this does not constitute a forest and then so we are
11:46able to you know uh take it out absolutely heena so you know there's a lot there's a lot of opposition
11:51to that to that so-called definition of punjab uh and haryana uh government and right now this is also
11:58where we're looking at based on that one classification or new so-called definition
12:03there will be a lot of land grab because forest when you declare something a forest that also
12:07restrains both government and private uh leasing of land or buying of land or construction in the forest
12:14area and when you suddenly and that's where you know i i always say that there are two forms of
12:19corruption one 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
12:44lightly speaking so indeed what we've seen is uh we've seen the laws the conservation laws the forest laws
12:51uh the here we've seen 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
13:07environmental impact assessment that is required for a road more than 100 kilometers this was a 900
13:12kilometer road but was split into 53 pieces uh so that they don't need to take uh an environmental
13:18clearance in that sense so we've seen these shortcuts a lot of that is done uh in the name of greater
13:25common good we actually say oh well this is for public this road that is being built or perhaps this
13:30forest that is being cleared we don't realize that all of the work that we did all the damage that we've
13:36done in the last 30 40 years is showing up as a result in climate events the frequency and intensity
13:43intensity of it already and whatever if we continue to do this it's only in the next 20 30 years that
13:49half of himalayas will be will be completely gone uh you know looking at gurgaon gurgaon might have
13:55a great skyline but if if if the if the is gone if our if our air quality is is done with if everyone
14:04right now the report says that you lose eight years uh of your life or eight and a half years of your life
14:09if you live in delhi ncr if the situation continues i'm sure in 10 years there'll be a report that
14:14will say that you are going to lose 30 years of your life and then there'll be a report if we still
14:19continue like this will be a report that that will say that you will die if you live in this city
14:23so if we are if you are imagining dead cities at the cost of being prosperous and pompous and fancy
14:31uh then god save us right and mr jaw do you think that we need to take a legal
14:37route in this because mcd seems to be not doing anything every monsoon season we have the same
14:42situation in gurugram so do you think uh i would even ask you uh should supreme court also you know
14:49go ahead and take a sumo to cognizance because uh not to forget that in the stray dog issue there was
14:55no death in delhi still um you know major verdict was passed and then later on it was a state that's
15:00different matter but don't you think that in this particular case when people are dying of
15:04electrocution don't you think that the supreme court needs to take a sumo to cognizance of this
15:09see ideally uh it's not our space to comment on what should supreme court think is a sumoto
15:15appropriate case indeed one can comment that yes if stray dogs were such a menace why can't life
15:21taking highways and devastation work that you've actually done the government is doing but at the
15:26same time we need to remember that governance is not the responsibility of the courts of our country
15:31governance 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 in
15:55river 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 mainstream
16:21realm of governance is very very risky in the long run still want to talk about the accountability
16:27where does it lie i mean um i was reading uh one of the comments by an expert who said that there are
16:33so many agencies on ground that sometimes they dodge accountability and they evade the responsibility
16:39and just blame the other one that this does not come in our purview uh this uh this is not something
16:44that we take care of so do you think because i also you know earlier spoke about this issue in terms
16:49of defense sector that why can't we have a central agency so that people can go to that central agency
16:55and talk to them tell them their issues and we have one person or one agency to be hold accountable
17:00absolutely so mcg here which is municipal council uh of gurgaon which is similar to what mcd is in delhi
17:08they are the ones that are supposed to be responsible for governance indeed in cities like
17:12this 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
17:23is the composite ncr in that sense or uh and therefore there's greater retention both media
17:30and and policy attention that is there uh you know we've been saying a lot of times that we need to
17:35have a regional plan and not the political boundary plan because you know if at the end of the day
17:40delhi's air has to be improved it has to be done together it cannot just be delhi's air it also has
17:47to be gurgaon's air air and noida's air similarly when you look at a watershed approach uh at the end of
17:53the day you know we're talking about the entire drainage of arawali and arawali that starts uh you
17:58know uh in in in gujarat uh ahmedabad and then the last point the tip of it is is actually yamuna uh which is
18:07in north 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
18:51household level or at the municipal level and similarly the drainage system so i think uh at this
18:57moment indeed the first thing should be and we don't never hear it the mcg commissioner should be
19:03should be sacked the entire team that supposedly was actually desilting the drains or was responsible
19:10for taking care of the drainage system or of the waste system because all around gurgaon i live in
19:16gurgaon and 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 morning
19:31and 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
19:43so in 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 the
19:56state state state is account 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
20:27is where as i earlier said fortune 500 companies are headquartered the india headquarters are in gurgaon
20:33and we 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 a lot 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
20:53we see 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 worth
21:05crores of rupees uh so what do we do because yes mcg commissioner needs to be hold accountable he needs
21:12to be sacked immediately because this is the state of affairs of gurugram but do you think that police
21:18also needs to come in place in the picture uh to arrest all these people who are you know running these
21:25land mafias every stakeholder here as we all know what gurugram has become it's it's a it's a
21:33reality mafia the the the property mafia runs the entire entire gurugram in that sense where they are
21:40perhaps some builders would be more powerful and more and wealthier than the municipality in that
21:46sense and a lot of them have been able to become wealthier because they've changed the rules or
21:51there's been connivance with the authorities and in authority indeed there are several authorities
21:56there's a there's a clearance for construction authority there's a completion certificate authority
22:02there's a there's an environmental clearance authority and indeed there's police which is which is
22:06also a part of this entire network in that sense so this nexus has to break but that can only happen
22:14when we have a consolidated public uh you know outcry for this there's also a courts of our country that
22:20needs to take on 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 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
23:04water uh the land the force not just from us in our own lifetime but from our our our coming
23:11generations we're going to lose because of this entire mafia giri that is going on right um thank you
23:17so much mr john i think uh we as people because journalists will keep on asking these questions and
23:24people like you who are working on ground will continue to give their insights but the issue is
23:28that it only happens in the month of monsoon and soon you know when the winter will arrive
23:32we'll start talking about pollution so i hope that we can uh we are able to break from this cycle
23:38and uh be able to actually bring about a reform thank you so much once again mr for speaking with
23:44the issue of the issue of the issue of the issue thank you
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