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Economic
Highlights
New Delhi, 23 September 2019
Jewar Airport
PLANNED DESERT IN
OFFING
By Shivaji Sarkar
It couldn’t be more ironical. As India played
host to the 14th meeting of the Conference of Parties of the UN
Convention to Combat Desertification, less than 45 km away from the venue, a huge
step is underway towards desertification of western UP’s fertile horn. The
project, setting up an international airport in Jewar, is more of a promotion
to boost the sagging real estate, instead of protecting farming land, lakes,
aquifers, swamps and ecology of the critical northern plains.
The Rs 16,000-crore project, likely to increase
to over Rs 24,000 crore, and is within 70 km from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International
Airport, has triggered protests by farmers, as it is primarily agricultural in
nature, with over 6,000 big trees -- mainly arjun and babool -- and plenty of
wetlands. Since townships and activity areas are to spring up all around it is
obvious that many more thousand trees would be felled and about 1000-odd known
water bodies may disappear.
The country doesn’t need a second
international airport and that too so close to the Delhi airport. It will be a massive
economic waste and at a time when the country is grappling with a severe slowdown.
The real estate all around this project in another 40 sq km area is gasping.
Hundreds of projects remain incomplete and the Yamuna Expressway built through
the stretch is itself in crisis. Its propounder Jaypee group is going through
problems amid heavy debt and NPA.
Hindon Air Force base airport, which has been
opened to civilian traffic, a stone’s throw from Jewar, hardly finds an airline
to host. Another 100 km west is Agra’s airport with international facilities. Still,
under pressure of the real estate lobby and unscrupulous political parties, a
massive effort has started in acquiring 2000-hectare land for the airport. But
as larger areas would come up for development, the risk is higher to ecology in
almost 100 km area.
So while climate change is a cyclic
phenomenon, human activities only worsen it. Minister for Environment and
Climate Change Prakash Javedkar stated at the Conference: “If human actions
have created the problems of climate change, land degradation and biodiversity
loss, it is the strong intent, technology and intellect that will make a difference.
It is human efforts that will undo the damage.” He also announced reclamation
of 50-lakh hectare barren land by 2030. And though it sounds encouraging, is it
really so?
Unfortunately, announcements and realities
are different. More such announcements are made, more land is found to be getting
degraded around the national capital as water use increases. It is just not
around Noida or Greater Noida, even Gurugram is being subjected to large
degradation by a hungry real estate lobby. The boom around all these places has
transformed thousands of hectares of arable land into plots for high rise
buildings, at least half of these incomplete and leading to not just an
environmental but also an economic disaster. What is not discussed is that more
the land for real estate, more it dehydrates the country, writes even the UP
Assembly Speaker HN Dixit.
Over the years, Delhi and its neighbourhood are
getting devoid of natural water sources and there is more water pollution
despite the Yamuna cleaning up rituals. The area around Jewar is now being
subjected to similar drying up of aqua sources. The region has also the highest
number of brick kilns, an ecological hazard in terms of heat, dust and smoke.
By having an airport it is to worsen the ecology in about a 100-km periphery
from Noida to Mathura. Unauthorised colonies are being planned in an area which
is the bread basket!
Close to the region in Aligarh-Kasganj, Alipur-Barwara
and Kasganj-Farrukhabad, again due to the construction of Ganga Expressway, and
other human encroachment of aquifers, acute shortage of water for irrigation is
being faced. While the administration is trying hard to revive old river
channels, it’s anybody’s guess whether it would succeed. But it has certainly become
a money spinner.
Interestingly enough, the UPA government was
in a mood to keep the airport project in limbo as in its view the Samajwadi
Party leaders would reap the benefits. The then government had also sounded
ecological concern and questioned the necessity of having an airport so close
to Delhi airport on the one side and Agra on the other, along with upgradation
of the Aligarh air strip.
Further, the airport project goes against the
move to rejuvenate 281 ponds in Jewar itself. About 800 other ponds and water
body rejuvenation plans in Noida, Dadri, Greater Noida, Dankaur and Bisrakh may
too get affected. District Magistrate BN Singh in adjoining Gautam Buddha Nagar
has admitted encroachments of ponds and other water bodies as construction
activities are increasing. He also says ponds in many places, including
Bilaspur and Surajpur were encroached by the administration for dumping growing
waste. Dadri, on way to Jewar, declared ‘semi-critical for water scarcity’,
built its municipality office on 1140 square metre pond and close by Tugalpur,
a college was built on a water body.
According to the groundwater department, aquifers
in Jewar have an over-exploitation rate of 108.81 per cent. As the area is
getting more populated with the impending airport, more ponds and aquifers
despite efforts at conservation are becoming victims of “development”. This “development”
includes construction of the airport, industries, large hotels, warehouses,
roads and other facilities. Each of these is to gobble up many water bodies.
Consequently, the critical region may end up dry and vehicular traffic and
industrial activities, which will surge, are bound to increase air pollution.
According to an official study, land
degradation has led to roughly 2.5 per cent loss of the country’s economic
output between 2014 and 2015. The region around Jewar airport is fragile. Being
close to Delhi, it is to degrade large tract and even heat up the national capital.
The massive investment will lead to desertification of the National Capital
Region (NCR), already hit by a chain of high rise buildings and expressways. This
only means that huge finances involved are posing challenges to the world
leadership between conserving or devastating environment. Undoubtedly, the Jewar
airport project needs reconsideration and restoration of land back to the
farmers to save the bread basket from becoming arid.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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