Greens see red over DTC depot

Greens see red over DTC depot

24 Jun 2009, 0424 hrs IST, TNN

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NEW DELHI: A temporary bus depot being planned on the Yamuna riverbed close to the Commonwealth Games Village has met with stiff resistance from 

certain environment groups. Citing the L-G's moratorium on further construction activity on the riverbed, the group claimed that allowing even something temporary will open the gates for more such projects to come up on the floodplain. 

The depot will be developed by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) to park around 300 buses meant specially for the Games on a 6-acre area. It will be allotted to it by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on a temporary basis and will have to be vacated within a week of the end of the Games. The project, strangely, has been cleared by the L-G, though on the condition that no permanent construction is allowed at the site. 

"Even though they are saying that no pernamant structures will come up, the riverbed does not have the type of soil that will allow parking unless it is concretised. The point is, once the project is cleared, anything can be done there on the pretext of the Games. When there are alternative sites available in and around the Village, why is the riverbed being thrown open to this kind of activity? This will also set a bad precedence for other agencies who will all rush for so called temporary set-ups on the riverbed,'' said Manoj Misra, convenor, Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan. 

However, DTC officials maintain that they will not be deviating at all from the conditions set out for the depot. "It is being allotted to us on a temporary basis so there is no question of us not vacating the place after the Games are over. Only bare minimum work will take place there that includes compaction of ground for parking, bringing in a CNG pipeline for fuelling and some temporary structures,'' said a senior DTC official. 

The conditions laid out for the temporary bus depot include no permanent construction, soft parking by compressing the earth or providing perforated paver blocks, temporary infrastructure that will be dismantled as soon as the Games are over, no servicing of vehicles on spot and that land will remain with DDA and will only be licensed to DTC till a week after the Games are over.