Najafgarh drain bird sanctuary
Kapur was invited to the area for touring the site where he also heard accounts of local villagers about the rampant illegal hunting of waterbirds that went on here every year.
The existing staff of the Flood Control and Irrigation Department, numbering about 40, were also given the additional responsibility of protecting the wildlife on and around the Drainage basin.
This was supposedly done to remove the threat of flooding in Delhi,[9][10] and now the drain itself acts as an elongated water body or lake.
Due to the rich wildlife observed in and around the less polluted stretch of the drain outside of congested populated areas, it has been proposed as a bird sanctuary for Delhi.
The sanctuary would cover an area of several kilometres along the Najafgarh drain and has advised to plant a large number of trees[14] on both its embankments to form a thick forest belt.
With the help of the Irrigation and Flood Control Department of the Delhi Government, the drain was de-silted to increase its storage capacity.
The catchment area of Najafgarh Jheel spreads in Delhi-Gurgaon border located 1–2 km distance from Jhatikra.
This natural depression obtains fresh water from west of ridge, north of Karnal and from the catchment area lying in Gurgaon.
The water quality of Najafgarh drain up to Chhawla supports wide range of aquatic fauna and flora including birds, fishes etc.
Najafgarh Drain is canalized after Bharat Nagar up to confluence to River Yamuna at Downstream Wazirabad Barrage.
Due to a large influx of various species of migratory waterfowl and waterbirds every winter, the drain has been a popular location for decades for illegal poachers, including diplomats from various embassies of different countries in Delhi who come to shoot birds annually with shotguns in their foreign cars with blue diplomatic number plates.
The drain channel from Dhansa regulators to Keshopur Bus Depot on Outer Ring Road is wide with thick and high embankments, vast amount of water is retained in this widened drain by closing the Kakrola regulators under Najafgarh Road to recharge the local ground watertable hence it acts like an elongated lake as well.
Rainwater accumulating in the Najafgarh lake or jheel basin had been recorded to have occupied more than 300 square kilometres in many years before its unfortunate draining.
However, with recent advances in ecological understanding it has become clear that draining of this vast lake affected the entire climate of this important region that is India's capital territory and its neighbourhood.
Most of the Najafgarh jheel basin lands have increased many folds in their value owing to them coming within Delhi, India's capital territory and are under ownership of farmers who may want to make a fast buck selling them to developers who want to convert the former lake basin into housing complexes as has already been happening with major housing colonies coming up in the region.
[34] The Najafgarh drain has been much widened over the past decades and now has thick mud embankments on both its sides to channel the waters and protect Delhi from floods, these embankments have been planted with thick forest cover which serve as a much needed habitat for remnant local wildlife occurring in nearby and surrounding farmlands including common foxes, jackals, hares, wild cats, nilgai, porcupines and various reptiles and snakes including the dreaded cobras.
The relatively cleaner portion of the drain in rural southwest Delhi before it enters densely populated and badly polluted area at Vikaspuri also attracts some small scale local village fishermen, occasionally one can be seen casting his line or net in the waters or floating on a black inflated truck tire tube spreading his fishing net across the breadth of the drain.
Other resident wild bird and animals also inhabit these farmlands including hares, nilgai, wildcat, common fox, jackal, monitor lizards, various varieties of snakes etc.
However, if the Najafgarh Drain ever breaches its man-made and fortified embankments during the monsoon season, large swaths of these housing colonies could be flooded.
However the waterbirds wintering on the Najafgarh drain may not be the ones responsible for air strikes at all as in 2008, the airfield environment management committee found that several illegal slaughterhouses near the airport area were attracting birds that were leading to problems for the aircraft.
Officials highlighted six critical areas of Dwarka, Indira Market in RK Puram, Sadar Bazar, Mehram Nagar, Dabri More and Gazipur, where the illegal slaughterhouses were operating.
[42][43][44][45][46] "At IGIA (Indira Gandhi International Airport), several steps have been taken to control the bird menace, which include positioning of 25 zone guns along the runway, deployment of 50 bird chasers, installation of reflective tapes, bursting of crackers, scare crow devices on jeeps, regular grass cutting and pesticide spraying," the Indira Gandhi International Airport management stated.
Apart from these, pigeons and crows also affect flights, these birds are not related to the wetland ecosystem of Najafgarh drain but are local to the immediate vicinity and premises of the Delhi Airport.
