With Agra losing its Mughal-era ponds to builders and a court issuing an
order to save them, a citizen's group, using Google Maps and land
records, has been looking for the water bodies in city of the Taj Mahal.
The exercise
was undertaken after an Allahabad High Court directive to Agra district
authorities to ensure that the existing ponds did not fall prey to land
grabbers. The court passed the order while hearing a public suit on
lost community ponds in Agra, most of them grabbed by builders to
construct apartments. The court, which will next hear the case Monday,
also expanded the ambit of the suit.
A division bench consisting
of Acting Chief Justice Amitava Lala and Justice P.K.S. Baghel said a
public suit "cannot be restricted to just one district. A copy of this
order be circulated by the state to all the district authorities so that
no land grabbing etc. by converting ponds will be allowed and if such
action is initiated, that will be stopped till further order is passed
by this court."
The court also sought a status report from the
Agra district magistrate about the filled-up ponds within two weeks
besides those which continue to exist.
While the magistrate is
still to act on the orders, the citizens' group, consisting of
environmentalists and professionals, completed the exercise of spotting
the ponds and submitted the findings to the divisional commissioner
Friday to be forwarded to the court.
In January 2011, the court
bench had issued contempt notices to top officials of the Agra
administration, civic agencies and police over a petition alleging that
several ponds in the city had been usurped by builders who had raised
commercial complexes or houses on them.
In his petition,
environmentalist D.K. Joshi had submitted a list of over 100 community
ponds that were removed to make way for buildings over the years. The
court issued the notice Jan 7.
"The government agencies did not
positively respond to the directions. Therefore, I approached the court
which sent notices to officials to explain why action should not be
initiated against them," Joshi told IANS.
Joshi said the city once had more than 400 ponds. "Now, only a handful are left. Most have been gobbled up by builders."
In
his petition, Joshi referred to a statement of the district magistrate
who admitted that 92 ponds had been encroached upon but action had not
been taken so far to free the ponds of illegal structures.
"In the Bodla area, the district urban development agency has constructed a building in the middle of a pond," Joshi said.
Joshi
had first filed his petition in 2005. The high court took note of it
and directed the authorities to initiate action after a detailed survey.
But nothing happened.
"The case has been hanging fire," Joshi said.
As such, the citizen' group has now prepared its own status report on the missing ponds.
"In
their affidavit, district authorities had told the court that more than
40 ponds were restored and filled with water. We are contesting that
claim with our report which has been prepared after spot surveys,"
Sharad Gupta, who was part of the team, told IANS.
"It is a
criminal act to level water bodies and grab the land. Not just private
builders, even government agencies have been doing that.," alleged
Shravan Kumar Singh, an activist.
K.S. Rana, an academic, said:
"This is a unique initiative of civil society. Even before
administrative officials could wake up, we had submitted our report."
Saving Mughal-era ponds in Agra
