New Delhi: The Supreme Court has directed the Railways, NCT Delhi, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Trust (DUISB) and concerning municipal corporations to chalk out a comprehensive plan for removal of jhuggies built along Delhi's railway tracks and execute it in a phased manner.
The bench led by Justice Arun Mishra has ordered on a batch of pleas pertaining to pollution in Delhi.
Railways had informed the apex court that, there is a "predominant presence of jhuggies in Delhi along the 140 km route length of track in the region of NCT of Delhi where the railway tracks take off in different directions and also include a ring connecting the takeoff of all these routes. Out of this, about 70 km route length of the track is affected by large jhuggie jhopri clusters existing in close vicinity of tracks. These clusters sum up to a total of about 48000 nos of jhuggies in the region adjacent to Railway tracks".
The court ordered that the encroachments which are within the safety zones should be removed within 3 months without any political interference. It has also said that no court shall grant any stay with respect to removal of encroachments.
Special Task Force has already been constituted by the railways for the purpose as per the NGT PB New Delhi.
With regards to piling and dumping of waste, plastic etc the court has directed all the stakeholders mentioned above to meet next week and start the work forthwith. Within a period of 3 months, the plan for removal of garbage has to be executed in a phased manner.
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"70% of the requisite amount shall be borne by the railways and 30% by the state government. The manpower be provided by the SDMC, Railways and agencies available with the government, free of cost, and they will not charge it from each other. SDMC, Railways and other agencies to ensure that their contractors do not put the waste/garbage on the sides of the railway tracks," read the order.
The court also clarified that this shall not be a temporary measure but the Railways shall prepare a long term plan to prevent dumping of waste along the railway tracks.
The court observed that as per the EPCA's and Railways' affidavits, nothing has been done so far, waste is getting piled up, human habitation has come up unauthorisedly for which action has to be taken and reported to the court within one month after which the court will hear the matter again.
For the smog towers the centre and the Delhi government assured the court that they will be completing the work in 10 months, requisite money has been transferred to Tara consultancy and Rs 52 lakhs has been transferred to "Clean air-CARE LLC" which is the licensee of the University of Minnesota. Court ordered that project shall be completed in 10 months positively else it will be treated as contempt as there is already a "huge unjustified delay".
