Court raps Ghaziabad administration for water bodies encroachment

Ghaziabad: Acting on large-scale encroachment of ponds and water bodies, the Allahabad High Court has directed the Ghaziabad administration to submit a report on the status of water bodies in the district.

The high court directed the district magistrate to present facts about the number of ponds that have been filled up or have been consumed under construction and also ponds that are remaining.

The court, on a PIL, has also directed the administration to stop land grabbing of ponds and has stayed any further construction on them.

The court passed the interim order on a PIL filed by social activist Rajendra Tyagi, who claimed that the water bodies of the district were fast vanishing due to uncontrolled construction and grabbing of ponds by land sharks in connivance with officials.

According to Tyagi, 82 of the 123 ponds in the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) Master Plan 2021 area have completely vanished.

Tyagi claimed before the court that of the 20 lakh square yards of ponds in the district, 15 lank square yards has been usurped. The market value of this land is about Rs.1,500 crore.

"The Nagar Nigam area has 123 ponds whereas the revenue records of 1952 show more than 147 water bodies. Even the remaining ones are facing high degrees of pollution ," Tyagi, a four-time municipal councillor, said.

"Several villages like Kaila, Bonjha, Jatwara, Rajapur, Sadarpur, Sihani, Morta, Nayfal and Bamheta had ponds which have been entirely consumed by the GDA in its own schemes whereas they have been enumerated in the revenue records," he said.

"Several SC orders in this context have been brazenly ignored by the administration... The administration even prepared forged reports and submitted fake compliance reports about the status of water bodies to the state government," Tyagi claimed.