62 farmhouses on floodplain razed by Noida authority

NOIDA: Sixty-two unauthorised farmhouses, among them plush ones with luxurious suites, swimming pools and myriad recreational amenities, were razed on Wednesday in a joint crackdown by the Noida Authority and the irrigation department on illegal construction on the Yamuna floodplains with heavy police deployment.
The properties were built illegally in the eco-sensitive floodplains area near Sector 150 over a total area spanning around 1.5 lakh square metres, officials said. Fifty-five of the farmhouses that bulldozers brought down were at Tilwara village and the others at Gulavali. All the farmhouses, the officials said, were being used for commercial activity, which is why they had been equipped with premium amenities.
Noida Authority’s officer on special duty (OSD) Prasun Dwivedi said legal proceedings would be initiated against people involved in illegal occupation of the floodplains and FIRs would be lodged with police.
“Such drives will continue in the coming days to demolish such illegal constructions that have already been identified,” he told TOI.
On Tuesday, the Noida Authority had demolished an illegal farmhouse in Kambuxpur on about 4,000 sqm of land. In Wednesday’s exercise, the biggest in recent times, nearly 150 officials and workers, nine earthmovers and dumpers were deployed. The exercise, which began around 9am, lasted three hours.
The move comes a week after the District Ganga Committee directed the Noida Authority and Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority to draw up an action plan to clean up the Yamuna and Hindon rivers and remove encroachments from their floodplains.
On Tuesday, district magistrate Suhas LY, who heads the Ganga panel, told TOI that the floodplains of the two rivers were marked as “green areas” under the Industrial Development Act and unplanned and illegal construction in the river floodplains are prohibited.
A government order, dated 2010, and an NGT order issued in 2013 ban construction activities on river floodplains. They also state that the government will not provide any compensation for damages caused by floods in case of illegal constructions, while the damage caused by these structures would be recovered from the builders.