February 8, 2025

The capital has more than 18,000 parks and gardens, but most of them are concentrated in just five districts, a new analysis found, with the smallest areas in the congested north-east region of Delhi, raising concerns over the uneven spread of green patches. in the rapid expansion of the city’s margins.

The analysis, by the Center for Youth Culture Law and Environment (CYCLE), shows that parks cover 8.1% of the southeast part of Delhi, where the district tops the list in terms of percentage coverage. West Delhi is second, with areas spread over 6.6% of the district and third in East Delhi with 6.3%.

South and New Delhi districts have parks and gardens in 6% of their area each.

A wide gulf separates the top and bottom of the list, with parks covering only 1.2% of northeast Delhi. Fares in north and south-west Delhi were marginally better, with 2.3%.

The NGO used data from the Delhi Parks and Gardens Society (DPGS) as well as Geospatial Delhi Limited (GSDL) to create a digital map of Delhi’s parks.

Paras Tyagi, president of CYCLE India, says that although Delhi is known for its greenery, with over 23% percent of the Capital’s geographical area under green cover, its distribution somewhat uneven.

“Access to parks is not easy for everyone, especially in the outer parts of Delhi, where unauthorized colonies and urbanization add more concrete, but not enough parks or green to- with this,” said Tyagi.

The National Forest Policy of India aims to bring at least one-third of India’s total geographical area under green cover. The green cover should be at least 66% of the total area in the mountainous regions and 20% in the plains, the policy says. Delhi has exceeded the benchmark.

“There is a need to change urban spaces and try and find solutions because concretisation has increased on a large scale in urban cities,” he said.

In absolute terms, South Delhi has the most parks, with such green patches spread over 2,373 acres in the 38,995 acre-district. The New Delhi district (the Lutyens’ area) is a close second, with 2,325 hectares of parks.

Certainly, absolute numbers do not provide a necessarily accurate picture of the green cover of a region. For example, Shahdara has the second lowest number of parks in terms of hectares (496 hectares), but is also the smallest district in Delhi by some distance, spread over 8,900 hectares.

However, here too, North-east Delhi is at the bottom of the pile, with 142 acres of parks in the entire 11,141-acre district.

Tyagi said that the division is not visible when the districts are compared to each other, but when they are analyzed individually.

“No single district has a uniform spread of this basic facility,” he said.

Chandra Bhushan, CEO of iForest says that poor planning is the key to the uneven distribution of green patches around the Capital.

“An area of ​​more than 5% percentage under parks is still good, but one needs the right mix of parks, gardens, open spaces and forests too. Delhi also has a lot of cover in the forest, but the problem is the lack of planning because Delhi has developed slowly over the past decades. There is a lot of green space in the center and New Delhi because Lutyens’ is a planned area, while slowly “As the city expands, more and more unplanned development takes place. This, unfortunately, does not give equal importance to parks,” Bhushan said.

He said that north-east Delhi has seen many post-Partition settlements and the focus is to settle as many people as possible. However, no corrective steps were taken thereafter, he added.

A resident of Budhela in west Delhi, Tyagi says the commercial functions of the parks are also depleting a scarce utility.

Residents across Delhi say urbanization, even in traditional agricultural areas, has limited access to green spaces.

Jitender Yadav, from Delhi’s southwest Jhuljhuli village, said basic public services such as parks or playgrounds have disappeared from agricultural and residential areas.

“In areas with farmland, there is open space, but what about areas with rapid urbanization, like Najafgarh? Villages are losing gram sabha land to the DDA [Delhi Development Authority] but there is no plan to give the people of these villages utilities on these parcels of land,” he said.

Haripal Dabas from the village of Kanjhawala in northwest Delhi says similar difficulties are plaguing the area. “Since 1993, the village has been going through the process of land consolidation and gradually all the gram sabha land has been acquired by the Delhi government. It has not been transferred to the DDA, nor has it been converted into any park or playground for the child. We think about what values ​​will grow in the next generation and where they will play,” he said.

Diwan Singh, an environmentalist, who is also the convener of the Mundka Kirari Harit Abhiyaan, said there is a lot of land to carve out green spaces, especially on the outskirts of Delhi.

“In the north, south-west and west of Delhi, the land is being used to develop industries or housing societies, but parks are not being created in the same ratio. The available land should be converted into green spaces as well and it will provide places for locals to play and thrive,” he said.

The Delhi government is working on an initiative ‘Green Park, Green Delhi’, which aims to improve and maintain existing parks in the Capital. Already, more than 16,000 parks have been surveyed, of which 6,345 parks were found not to be maintained.

A state government official said that DPGS has already provided financial assistance to RWAs in Delhi to maintain existing parks, as well as carve out new ones. ” 2.55 lakh per hectare can be given to each RWA for redevelopment and maintenance of parks and more 1 lakh per hectare will be given to them for development and maintenance of new parks. In addition, funds have also been allocated to install local STPs,” said the official, adding that more parks can be built in areas where there is a need. To avail this, RWA should approach DPGS and fill a form on the website.

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