Bus depot near Yamuna to be shifted

Public park to come up

The Delhi government on Wednesday came to the rescue of the degenerating Yamuna river by deciding to pull down the DTC’s Millennium bus depot built in a sensitive zone on the river bed and to develop the space into a public park.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the decision was in line with the government’s stand that there should be “no-tinkering with the Yamuna” and rainwater should be harvested or stored to meet potable water shortage in the city.

He also indicated that the draft Jan Lokpal Bill would be ready in a day or two.

 The bus depot, built at a cost of Rs 60 crore for the 2010 Commonwealth Games by the previous Congress government, has a thick layer of concrete as the floor of its sprawling 60-acre campus where nearly 1,000 buses are parked.

The depot is located close to the western end of the Nizamuddin Bridge over the river and barely a kilometre away from the Games village.  

The depot also had workshops and CNG-filling stations for the buses. Kejriwal said the depot is involved in a litigation in Delhi High Court and on Thursday, the government would submit an affidavit conveying its decision to shift it.

“The lieutenant governor is happy with our decision to remove the bus depot,” Kejriwal said, pointing out that till now, the government’s stand on the issue had been that the land use category should be changed to transport zone from the current O zone.The new location of the depot was yet to be identified, said the chief minister.

On water shortage, Kejriwal said to address the issue of water crisis in the national capital, Delhi Government is planning to come up with a long-term strategy to harvest rainwater.

“Water harvesting can be a long-term solution to the problem of water crisis,” he said.He said, in a meeting with Delhi Jal Board CEO and experts, that it was decided that rainwater harvesting and storage can reduce our dependence on other states for raw water.