Tannuka Juneja
Noida Authorities on Saturday demolished 27 illegally built farms on 15 hectares of the Yamuna floodplain, officials said. He said that the cost of the land where the demolishing exercise was carried out is around ₹60 crore.
The demolition campaign was carried out at the request of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Noida Authority, Ritu Maheshwari, as part of a campaign against occupation in environmentally sensitive areas along the river.
The entire exercise was conducted in the presence of a large police deployment in towns like Nagli Nagla and Nagli Wajidpur located in Sector 135.
A few owners of farmhouses/structures near Nangli Bazidpur claimed the land is legally owned by them and has also been registered at the Registrar’s Office.
Officials from the Department of Irrigation and Land Revenue and Noida Authority were also present during the operation.
The Noida Authority Executive Director has ordered the authorities to take effective action by campaigning to demolish the illegal and unauthorized constructions on the Yamuna riverbed and government notified areas.
Earlier, on June 8, authorities in Noida destroyed 15 illegal farms in the Yamuna floodplain in violation of the rules. Earlier on June 1, 62 such structures were demolished.
In 2013, an NGT order had banned construction on ecologically sensitive floodplains. Noida Authority has been carrying out surveys to identify illegal structures, and experts of the Yamuna Monitoring Committee set up by the NGT had also recommended that floodplains needed to be reclaimed for enhanced biodiversity.
The Noida Authority has appealed to locals that they should not invest in any form of construction on the river bed area since it has been deemed illegal, and said colonies on the river bed have been built through illegal plotting and incomplete registry. The Authority further stated that anti-encroachment drives will be carried out using police force in the future.
