New Delhi : Jagdeesh Kumar, a 62-year-old resident of Vishwas Nagar, has a fixed routine. Every evening, he takes a walk around Jheel Park in east Delhi’s Welcome – not too far from his home. The park, renovated in recent years, boasts landscaped paths and even an amphitheatre. But it is missing a crucial thing – the jheel (lake) it was named after.
It has been nearly four years since the lake was drained of water as part of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)’s plan to renovate and redevelop the area. However, the final task – filling it with water from a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) has yet to be completed. In the meantime, the 62-acre depression lies barren, filled with weeds, burnt grass, and rubble, acting as a playground for children.
This instance perfectly encapsulates the stagnancy that preservation and restoration of Delhi’s water bodies has seen in recent years. A 2021 count by Delhi’s State Wetland Authority (DSWA) identified 1,045 water bodies in Delhi. However, a physical inspection later found many of them were either non-existent because of encroachments, or had dried up completely. In April 2024, the Delhi government added 322 sites based on satellite imagery, adding to 1,367.
In 2021, the DSWA announced plans to notify 20 major water bodies as wetlands, including the Welcome jheel. This gives the water body legal protection, clearly demarcates its boundaries, and even allows for the creation of Integrated Management Plans (IMP) to get funds from the Centre to protect and rejuvenate them.
A deadline of 2022 was set for the notification of the list that also included Hauz Khas lake, Bhalswa Lake, Smriti Van (Kondli), Smriti Van (Vasant Kunj), Tikri Khurd Lake and Najafgarh Jheel.
Five years on, the DSWA has not notified a single water body as a “wetland”.
Officials, on condition of anonymity, said it was because of the delay on the land-owning agencies, particularly in sharing details of water bodies. “We are simply the nodal agency, but actual details of the water body, including its total area, catchment area, its water sources for example and the demarcation exercise has to only be carried out by the land-owning agencies, “ said an official connected to the DSWA. The body was constituted in April 2019 under the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, to identify and protect water bodies
“Detailed brief documents have to be prepared, but agencies, despite being given multiple reminders have failed to share brief documents or in a number of cases, shared incomplete information,” said the official.
For instance, the Welcome Jheel, he said, is “closest” in the process, but MCD had yet to share certain information it had been asked for. “Once submitted, it will be scrutinised and then the process of notification can be formally initiated.”
Another issue is that the DSWA rarely meets. The last meeting was convened in 2024, with no formal meeting taking place in 2025. No meeting has so far been scheduled in 2026. On the website, meanwhile, one can only access the minutes of the meetings until September 10, 2021.
In January last year, the Union environment ministry told the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that work on restoring the water bodies across Delhi was being coordinated among different land-owning agencies. Of these, in the first phase, 631 water bodies were to be rejuvenated in the first phase by December 31, 2024. This included encroachment removal, de-silting, and the clearing of invasive species, as per the directions of the Delhi High Court.
Hearing a plea seeking protection of wetlands, on April 8, the court had directed the government to ensure all wetlands are appraised for maintenance by the end of 2024 — a deadline it has long missed.
On World Wetlands Day this year, Delhi’s environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said the government’s efforts to protect water bodies was underway, with the process to identify and demarcate the boundaries of 856 water bodies already complete. Another 174 had seen revival and rejuvenation works completed so far, the tender to protect and revive another 22 water bodies had recently been floated, and detailed estimates were being prepared for 20 more such water bodies in Delhi, he said.
Sirsa had also said the Neeli Jheel at Asola was being considered as Delhi’s first ”Ramsar” site — a designated wetland of international importance under a 1971 treaty signed in Ramsar, Iran.
Welcome, a Jheel of neglect
On HT’s visit to the Welcome jheel on February 3, locals said the water body exists merely on paper. “I remember it last had water in 2022 and even then, this was dirty water. This water was drained out on the pretext that the lakebed will be cleaned, dug up and made deeper. The entire area was beautified, but water was never released,” said Jagdeesh Kumar. The lake fills up with rainwater in the monsoon months, but the water rarely lasts.
“Since it’s not enough water, the lake ends up drying again in two or three days,” Kumar added. “Green spaces and lakes in east Delhi are a rarity and this site could be a breath of fresh air, if only it had water.”
Amardeep Singh, a resident of Dilshad Garden, said the jheel was dry when he last visited in 2024. “It’s the same now. The park is now known more for kite-flying, as children come here and use the dry lake bed as a space to run with kites.”
An MCD official, on condition of anonymity, said that, although the horticulture department had completed its portion of work in the Welcome lake project, the STP had not yet become fully operational because the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) had diverted the untreated water meant for it to another project.
“The lake’s construction was completed about a year and a half ago, the STP had also been commissioned, and the lake had also been filled with water, but because of the diversion, the STP is not operational,” the official said. The DJB did not respond to HT’s requests for comment.
Experts said the lack of progress on notifying wetlands in the Capital has wider implications. “Five years is a significant amount of time to notify any wetland and this is the situation in the Capital, where there are a thousand eyeballs on every project,’ said activist Paras Tyagi, who runs the Cycle India, a non-governmental organisation based in the Capital, and has been fighting to protect a local water body in his village in southwest Delhi’s Budhela.
He objected to construction of a community centre of the Delhi government’s Sahitya Kala Parishad on the nearly 1.5 acres wide site and the issue is in court right now. “It is somewhat ironic that a dry water body is being notified as a wetland and water bodies which have water are not being protected by the DSWA. Ensuring a water source, particularly through treated water, is not a hard task,” Tyagi added.
Manu Bhatnagar, the principal director of natural heritage division, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), who has previously worked on the revival of Hauz Khas lake, said the plan for Welcome Jheel involved using a significant area of the project site for phyto-remediation.
“Even that was completed, but for one reason or another, they have failed to release STP water here,” Bhatnagar said, adding, “While five years is a long time, we also have to see that the Wetland Rules require specifics, such as the contour level, highest flood level (HFL) and for wetlands to not have any encroachments in a fixed radius. At a number of urban water bodies, it is tough to define the basin, the catchment area and even the HFL.”
No response had been received from Sirsa till the time of going to print.
The rejuvenation of the Welcome Jheel was funded through various central and state schemes and the revamped site was inaugurated in February 2022, ahead of the last Lok Sabha elections. The lake’s restoration was planned back in 2012 by the then East MCD, with ₹22 crore allocated to it under Trans-Yamuna Area Development Board. In the first phase, ₹7 crore was allocated for an STP. This was followed by an amphitheatre, administrative blocks, and a landscaped footpath.
In June 2022, the MCD announced it will rejuvenate 21 ponds and water bodies across the city under the Amrit Sarovar Mission of the Union government for which ₹47.66 cr were sanctioned. Even though the body said that work on 18 of the sites is complete, a large number of these locations like Welcome, Aya Nagar, and Ghazipur, among others, are lying dry.
A second official said the remaining water bodies under the mission, where water is missing, will likely see progress soon. “We are also expecting some water to fill up during the monsoon period.”