Who lives on the floodplains of the Yamuna in Delhi and what do they do? A report on the floodplains launched on Thursday – Bottom-Up Mapping of the Yamuna – sought to answer these questions by mapping the floodplains along the 22 km stretch of the river that flows through the city.
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As many as 56 bastis, with about 9,350 households, and roughly 46,750 people, are on the floodplains, Zone O in the city’s master plan, the report found. Of the total number of households, a little more than half, that is, 4,835 households, practise farming as a livelihood, while others rely on daily wage work, fishing, nurseries, and animal herding, according to the report, prepared by Social Design Collaborative, members of the MainBhiDilli campaign, and Basti Suraksha Manch.
The mapping exercise considered one basti as having 15 or more houses, with five people as the average size of a household. A door-to-door survey was not conducted, and a 10% margin of error would have to be factored in, noted the presentation made at the online launch of the report. The presentation added that the 56 bastis do not feature in the list of JJ clusters in the city. The average size of the bastis on the floodplains is 153 households. The report also marks the evictions that have taken place along the floodplains, including continuing ones for the Delhi Development Authority’s Yamuna floodplain ‘restoration’ project.
A three-member expert committee constituted on the orders of the NGT in 2013 had said that all cattle farms, farmhouses and nurseries on the active floodplains must be relocated.
The DDA is undertaking a project to restore the floodplains. The project includes walkways, cycle tracks, creating wetlands, planting trees, and eco-tourism activities along the entire stretch of the river in the city. The first phase of the project involves the removal of encroachments along the stretch.
At the report’s launch, Pooja, who lives and runs a nursery on the floodplains near CWG village, where a section of the DDA’s project is proposed, said about the DDA’s plans – “It would be good if they can accommodate us along with the jheel.”
The report entailed work over a nine-month period, and the communities living in the bastis were involved to answer questions of how many households there are, what is their livelihood, and what vegetables are grown in which areas. Near Palla and the Hiranki village, farmers grow rice, wheat and flowers, while seasonal vegetables like spinach are grown downstream. Cauliflower, fenugreek, mustard, potato, brinjal, tomatoes and carrots are also grown on the floodplains. Vegetables contribute to the produce at local mandis as well as larger ones at Azadpur and Ghazipur.
“Zone O supports a large variety of nature-based livelihoods with a low ecological footprint. Yet, these are being forcibly evicted in the name of ecological rejuvenation of the region,” the presentation made at the launch noted.
The NGT in an order issued in 2015, while hearing a matter related to pollution of the Yamuna, had said that agricultural activity needs to be stopped immediately till the Yamuna is “restored to its original status”. The worry then was that polluted water from the Yamuna was being used to irrigate the farmlands. Members of the organisations that conducted the study however said Thursday that farmers along the floodplains use groundwater for irrigation.
The study found that most residents of the floodplains had migrated here from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Rajasthan. While some of the bastis have been around for about eight decades, others are about 3 to 4 decades old. Land use along the floodplains is diverse, and includes forested areas, nurseries, houses, farmland, and mandis.
The report also used Google Earth imagery and GIS mapping to note that the extent of farmland along the floodplains had reduced from 4850 hectares in 2000 to 3330 hectares in 2020. The study found that as people are evicted, livelihood shifts from farming to daily wage work.
The study makes recommendations including that of integrating the riverfront development project with farming, making farming viable by providing welfare schemes to farmers along with training for organic farming, and rehabilitation if eviction must be resorted to.
Of the total number of households, a little more than half (4,835) practise farming as a livelihood. Others rely on daily wage work, fishing, nurseries, and animal herding, as per the report, prepared by Social Design Collaborative, members of the MainBhiDilli campaign, and Basti Suraksha Manch. 
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