Sarvodaya Enclave residents team up to conserve soil

South Delhi’s Sarvodya Enclave has become the first residential society in Delhi to come up with a new tile design to conserve soil. 

With no Central or state law in place to conserve soil, environment activist Padmawati Dwivedi took upon herself to keep an eye on any new concretisation of ramps by people in Sarvodya Enclave, where she lives, and asked them to instead use grass pavers which help in protecting soil and recharge groundwater.

The concrete or cement structures that people mostly construct outside their houses destroy the topsoil by preventing water to seep in. Grass pavers are x-shaped tiles which act as porous surface to let water percolation.

“People have no tolerance towards soil. They fail to understand how concretisation of tiles impacts in a negative way. Since I could not convince them to let the soil be, I decided to approach them with this new design,” said Dwivedi, who is known for conducting the city’s first tree census in her neighbourhood in 2011.

Concretising creates ‘heat island effect’ and also doesn’t recharge groundwater. Explaining this, Dwivedi says, “Local use of tiles increases temperature by five to seven degrees and disturbs local weather”.

One of the biggest advantages of conserving soil is that it holds carbon dioxide and in its absence it will released into atmosphere.

 Akash Vashistha, who has filed a PIL in the National Green Tribunal regarding concretisation, especially around trees, in Delhi, says, “Soil is the biggest carbon sink. Every state is framing climate action plan. How can they forget conserving soil?”

He adds that there is organic content in top soil and thus can’t be covered completely. Also, it is a rich ecological component which supports micro/macro organisms. The government each year celebrates Sparrow Day. But they forget that the birds thrive upon microorganisms. The urban ministry guidelines are there but the authorities have failed to implement them.”

According to Urban Ministry guidelines, no soil should be covered unless there is a study done to justify a pucca pavement. Even then, use of pervious material or porous tiles is advocated.

 As far as Sarvodya Enclave goes, Dwivedi has been successful in convincing people to use grass pavers, after three years of struggle towards this cause. She has been working with South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and now almost all newly-constructed ramps and pavement slabs have grass pavers instead of cemented tiles.

 “Sadly there is no law to protect soil in the country. So, I started with requesting people. But, after I got into scuffles, I approached the SDMC as any construction beyond the house owner’s compound is encroachment. MCD was initially reluctant but later they proved to be helpful. Now people have started understanding, and they themselves approach me for the design. Though still for most of them aesthetics of grass pavers are more important than environmental concern,” said Dwivedi.

She added that even other localities are planning to emulate this model and have approached their local MLAs.

Recently, Dwivedi also wrote to the New Delhi Municipal Council regarding covering of green spaces on Mansingh Road with interlocking tiles and using them for parking purposes.