NEW DELHI: A day after the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) issued a fresh notice to ghat residents between Ghat No. 2 and 32 in the Yamuna Bazar area to vacate voluntarily, the authority on Thursday carried out a demolition drive in the area to clear the encroachments.
Residents of the area, which is home to around 80 families, have been asked to move to nearby shelter homes. A local said that action had started around 6 in the morning.
Ruing the action, another resident, Prabha Sharma, said, “People have been living here since the British period. We have documents of everything, including house tax papers and lease documents to prove that families have been living here since way back in 1934.”
Further, talking about the alternate settlements provided by the authorities to locals like her, Sharma said, “They are sending us to the Rain Basera shelters even though those are extremely unsafe. That area is full of drunkards and criminals. The government isn’t concerned about where we go.”
Another local resident, an elderly man named Brijesh shared, “We have already packed all our belongings, but we have nowhere to go. The authorities concerned have just added to our plight.”
Another resident, Rajesh, lamented that the demolition had left his family without any means of income. “Our family has lived here for more than 150 years. We operate boats and have no other options to make money,” he said, adding,
“We were asked to vacate but no one told us how we were to survive. If we move away from the river, how will we operate our boats? We have lost the only source of livelihood that our family has ever known.”
He further added that the expenses of finding a new home, shifting, and adopting another source of income would crush his whole family.
A police officer privy to the matter said, “We had made adequate deployment to maintain law and order and ensure the smooth conduct of the drive.”
The most recent eviction notices issued by the authority had described the settlements as “illegal” and warned that it would remove the encroachments on its own if residents failed to voluntarily leave.
“The residents of Yamuna Bazaar Ghat No. 2 to 32 are informed that as per the directions given by the National Green Tribunal to the Delhi Development Authority the floodplain area of River Yamuna falling under the jurisdiction of DDA is to be freed from all types of encroachments,” the notice dated June 23 had said.
However, this was not the first time such notices were pasted outside the houses in the locality.
Just a month back, the DDA and the Delhi Disaster Management Authority had pasted similar eviction notices in the area, which has been identified as ‘O-Zone.’ It has been designated a protected, no-construction floodplain under the authority’s management.