Delhi’s new tourist attraction, a biodiversity park, will be next to DND Expressway

The residents and tourists in Delhi will soon rejoice in the 7th biodiversity park to be made next to the DND expressway. Reportedly, the main objective of this project is to eradicate the water hyacinths from Yamuna river in order to improve the water quality. However, for the first time, a constructed wetland system will be made on a river. After the successful completion of this project, the same model can be employed for other rivers too.

According to the news reports, the South Biodiversity park has been sanctioned by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and about INR 200 crores have been allotted for the completion of this project in the course of the next five years.
Ecologist CR Babu and a team of scientists have been assigned the task of working on this project. The 7th Biodiversity Park in Delhi will be similar to the Neela Hauz Biodiversity Park in all likelihood but will have many challenges before it can turn real.

One such challenge, reportedly, is the fact that the biodiversity park site is being used as a dumping ground for construction waste. In addition, it is an open defecation site for the slum dwellers residing nearby.

Fast-paced urban development, rising population and high-level of depletion of natural resources are taking a huge toll on the diversity of the plant and animal life of India’s rivers. To cover up for the damage done, it is important to make a sound ecosystem and creation of biodiversity parks, especially in the severely polluted Delhi/NCR.
There are six biodiversity parks in Delhi as of now, namely the Yamuna Biodiversity Park (Wazirabad), Kamla Nehru Ridge (Civil Lines), Tilpath Valley, Aravalli Biodiversity Park (Vasant Vihar) and another one that exists at the back of the Tughlaqabad Fort and the Neela Hauz Lake.