The National Capital Territory of Delhi has an area of 1483 sq.km and a population of 17 million persons. The River Yamuna bisects the City in two parts and offers a unique natural environment to the City. On Eastern Side of the River, a population of about 4 million persons live whereas on the Western side the remaining population lives. Considering the requirement of every competition event and to facilitate the movement of players, coaches and team managers etc. for different events, the competition venues had been finalized and the site of Games Village had been selected near the River Yamuna. A beautiful view of River basin, AksharDham Temple – a miracle in granite stone and the unique sky line of city of Delhi is visible from the complex.
The total area of the site is 47 ha. The Site is almost in shape of a square of about 1 x 1.1 km. The site is also connected with Metro Line and Station (Fig – 2 Site Map). On theNorthern side of the site, there is a Railway Line. Thus, you can find that the site has high accessibility. And location has most wanted ambience that suites the demand of the high end income groups.
Under the provisions of Master Plan for Delhi the areas falling under the basin of the Yamuna is sacrosanct from any development. But in the name of Common Games and national interest the basin of Yamuna has been opened up for the development of the common wealth games village which has ultimately got converted into high end residential areas. This is a broad based politics of development which caters to the special needs of the wealthier section of society, bureaucrats and politicians who have accumulated huge amount of wealth through fair and foul means.
India is really a country of hypocritical politicians and bureaucrats who work in tandem for each other’s benefits and sustenance. There would be rarely any consensus on making anything substantial for the poor. There is high proportion of backlog of housing for urban poor. In the name of housing for Low Income Group Housing (LIG), there is relentless auction of the LIG flats to the bidders without authentic verification of their claim of being LIG. Many high income group (HIG) people purchase two or more such flats and join it to make it a HIG flat in usability. The whole process of meeting the needs of the urban poor is negated due to this.
There is another great politics of development is ongoing in Delhi and it the landuse change of the so called greed belt of Delhi which is no more greener than it was conceived during the planning of the Delhi. The few years ago in a circular of the Ministry of Urban Development for allowing social infrastructure like school and hospitals in the Green Belt areas of the city. The lack of the real time updation of the Landuse plan through the use of sophisticated software like GIS is grossly lacking which makes it hard to detect the unapproved landuse changes.
"Time has come when we must think about the sustainable development approach which means that we must have due consideration of the social equity and the conservation cum protection of the natural environment while planning for the economic development to meet the need and the greed of the people who are in power whether economic or political."
By Shashikant Nishant Sharma
Sources:
Sources:
Sharma, S. N. (2013, October). Sustainable Development Strategies and Approaches. International Journal of Engineering & Technical Research, 1(8), 79-83.
