I attended a bit of the VK Malls public hearing day-1
(all of the first on Maruti Udyog Ltd EIA and a bit of
the one of Regency Park Mgt Services).
MUL made a PPt presentation, amidst many
interruptions. The panel was not managing the crowd.
The crowd was mainly the ridge-bachao-andolan ngo-rwa
crowd. Cmdr Sinha of Paani Morcha, Anil Sood of
Chetna, Pramod Chawla of URJA, Jyoti Sharma, Vikram
Soni, Romi Chopra, etc, made scholarly submissions.
Two young boys spoke on behalf of JNU and IIT
students. A number of persons from villages and flats
in the area echoed the same views in
voice-of-residents. The main point they all made was
the site is hugely beneficial ridge forest and water
catchment and the projects are hugely denuding,
depleting, polluting, problematic, etc.
Cmdr Sinha and Anil Sood cited Supreme Court orders in
support of site being ridge forest and catchment.
(Sood also said DDA plans show the site as forest,
which is not correct). The water catchment argument I
did not get: Cmdr Sinha referred to the drain to RK
Puram (ie, drainage, not catchment) and to the RWH
area to be developed by orders in his PIL (south of
the site and VK) and I missed how that makes the site
crucial-catchment. Jyoti Sharma spoke of wildlife and
surface water and forests in the area to allege
deliberate misleading in EIA that says there are none
(which MUL EIA consultant countered with
methodological clarifications, to which Soni and Sood
responded in defence of Jyoti with assertions of their
position). Benefits of ridge forest in terms of
oxygen, dust-trapping, etc, were put forth (while MUL
presenter repeatedly said there were no trees on the
plot and they would plant some, to which the others
said those would be consumers of water).
The arguments against the projects were simpler. It
seems MUL corporate office will, besides depleting
non-existent forest on its plot and disturbing elusive
wildlife in the vicinity and making supreme court
ordered RWH site to the south useless, give asthma to
children in the schools in the area and to senior
citizens (due to increased vehicular emissions),
endanger safety of women (as legal commercial
development is accompanied by hawkers, etc, where
undesirable elements drink, etc, and bad elements can
freely infiltrate as boundary walls maintenance
responsibilities are fuzzy between MCD and DDA),
endanger international safety (as site is close to /
en-route international airport, combined with the
bad-elements argument), cause bird-hits / endanger
flight safety (as site is in landing funnel and MUL
employees working for 15 hrs, I missed how-n-why, will
eat and leave leftovers that will attract birds, etc),
generate heat (with round-the-clock lighting), etc.
On water, MUL claimed DJB had assured them water and
ngo-rwa claimed DJB had assured them, under RTI, that
it had not. that has been typical DJB ploy in the area
ever since advent of bhagidaari, and there is ample
indication that the working relation between Dikshit
govt and DDA is limited to trading land-use
permissions for Delhi Govt illegalities for its
water-assurances for Central Govt indulgences through
DDA.
But ngo-rwa crowd has no quarrel with the govts, only
with authorities (mission-mode). nearly all had
something to say against DDA (though it had nothing to
do with EIA hearing). The ones who spoke in English
called for renaming it D-Destruction-A. ones who spoke
in Hindi called for renaming it D-Vinash-P. Some even
blamed DDA for problems with the hearing process,
including one who said it was very clever of DDA to
have seven hearings rather than one composite hearing.
The only objection addressed to Delhi Govt seemed to
be a typical bhagidaari one: a delegation had visited
the collector two days ago to ask for change of venue
to where more of the ngo-rwa crowd could attend.
The scholarly ones, including student representatives
from JNU, were objecting to the taking land from
villages to give to MUL. The villagers associated with
them (including, btw, with help from former MP Sahib
Singh Verma) also wanted land taken from them be made
forest. These were mainly from Munirka and so-called
Kusumpur village, abandoned since partition, and one
with in-laws in Kishangarh. (The site is on Masudpur
lands. The blocking of the stream to RK Puram flooded
Masudpur Dairy last year. The sewage-outfall problem
is of Mahipalpur).
The less than fully tutored villagers were not asking
for ridge forest, only for end to water mining. Some
even pointed out that land was cheaply taken from them
and they had share in the development (mpisg line) and
were heckled for wanting share in profit. Another, a
flat resident baffled about how-n-why the malls were
suddenly stopped was heckled even more (Ajit Singh ji,
who had taken me to Kapashera and whose extended
family owned part site, had an excellent thought at
this stage but declined to express it on mike to
minions: would there be net gain in forest and water
if JNU, in which villages have no stake, shifts and
the mall-makers are made to develop additional
commercial space for those whose shops were/will be
sealed/removed?).
The people from so-called kusumpur village (which is
actually listed, and what we call ngo-infested,
kusumpur pahari slum) included a lady who spoke of
water-woes and a social activist of an ngo affiliated
with munches. Two young boys held the only two
placards, both remembering-Lalkhet (saying it was
evicted and so the malls muct also go). Harpal, who is
in touch with Lalkhet oustees and told me none were
present or aware of the ngo representation of their
case, asked who had designed the placards. The boys
did not know, but an informed lady said Diwan Singh of
Munirka.
Diwan Singh was managing the (non-scholarly) crowd. He
was deciding who would speak and what. Harpal said so
and when I looked doubtful defied me to go check. I
lined up in the wanna-speak queue and when I reached
the crowd in the front, some chivalrous types made
space for me. Diwan Singh was telling the next speaker
to mention composite hearing. He then told the IIT
student representative to speak next. The child looked
at me apologetically and I said go-ahead-son. Then I
was asked what I would say and I said I-will-manage.
They had all been addressing the audience, with backs
to the panel. I did the reverse. I just said I was
planner representing mpisg and we had filed responses
to say we would not participate, only observe, as we
consider it improper to reply to Delhi Govt public
notice as it has not replied to us on court notices in
our PIL (in which nearly all the concerns mentioned so
far are duly raised) and since Delhi Govt issued this
public notice, meaningless in the adversarial climate
resulting from delay till after third party rights had
become rather unassailable, in pendency of public
notice for draft MPD2021 whereby Delhi Govt and DPCC
approved the malls project, in pendency of our PIL.
And that I felt constrained to object to the manner in
which the proceedings were being conducted, indulging
one dominant viewpoint (complete with its ex-parte /
proxy DDA-bashing) that is also dominating media and
courts, reducing the EIA public hearing to advocacy
rather than participation. I dunno if anyone
understood what I said. Diwan Chand spoke next
I would take the s.11A public notice process, with all
its current failings, any day (the munches could not
hijack that)
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