5 years, 50 letters: A battle to save Delhi’s vanishing water bodies

Over the last five years, the Delhi State Wetland Authority (DSWA) has sent eight reminders to land-owning agencies about the deteriorating condition of water bodies in northwest Delhi. Despite this, the authority recorded that “no satisfactory action has been taken to date”.

For 70-year-old Ram Naresh Kaushik, this is a case study of the institutional hurdles confronting water body conservation in the Capital. He was appointed one of Delhi government’s 27 ‘Wetland mitras’ in 2021, a voluntary role which encouraged the public to help protect and revive water bodies. Using revenue maps, khasra records and government correspondence, the retired electrical engineer has been documenting seven water bodies scattered across Rampura and Shakurpur from a desk in his apartment. Despite having written over 50 letters to different agencies, not a single water body was mapped or demarcated fully. Once spread over a total area of 6.3 acres, the water bodies have shrunk, having been left to deteriorate, he said. Some have entirely disappeared.

“When I first became a Wetland Mitra, I was hopeful of bringing change. However, five years on, little has changed on the ground. It shows despite having documents and proof, agencies are least interested in reviving water bodies in Delhi,” he said.

No change on the ground

This is not for lack of effort. Kaushik has furnished maps and khasra details to the relevant authorities, filed and pursued RTIs, and attended meetings.

Despite acknowledging the delays, the DSWA had done little more than issuing the reminders and letters. The latest reminder was issued on April 29, 2026, asking the district magistrate (central north) to take prompt action.

Seven previous communications — dated October 23, 2025; June 17, 2022; April 26, 2023; September 21, 2023; March 18, 2024; May 21, 2024; and August 14, 2025 — have been sent regarding Kaushik’s complaints about water bodies in the area. In that time, the correspondences, seen by HT, show the issue has travelled between the DSWA, Delhi Development Authority (DDA)’s engineering and land management wings, district administration , the sub-divisional magistrate offices, and the revenue department over the last five years. In 2022, the DDA finally agreed to carry out a demarcation exercise but this has been held up over lack of precise maps for on-ground marking. The northwest DM, the nodal officer for water bodies in their area and related complaints, has also “failed to take any action,” Kaushik added.

Starting this year, a major reorganisation of Delhi’s districts came into effect, the area now falls under the jurisdiction of the new central north district magistrate. Kaushik, following the latest letter by the DSWA to the DM central north approached the DM in person, but said he was informed the matter has been shared with the concerned SDM. “Surprisingly, the new DM’s office is barely 10m away from one of the water bodies, which is completely dry and has waste lying in the open,” said Kaushik. Last year, on August 1, he wrote to Delhi environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa and flagged that the water bodies had yet to be physically mapped, identified, or delineated.

Kaushik received two correspondences last year written by the minister’s OSD to the principal secretary (environment) and secretary (environment), but still, he said, nothing changed on the ground. HT reached out to the DM, the office of the environment minister, DSWA and DDA, but did not receive any response.

Issue persists across city

In an ongoing plea, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has been monitoring the status of Delhi’s water bodies. “A substantial number of waterbodies are not identifiable through satellite imagery, which means that either they are illegally filled in or encroached upon, but no effective action has been taken,” the SWA had said in 2024 to the NGT.

In a March affidavit, DSWA acknowledged that several water bodies had been encroached upon. According to DSWA records from 2022, Delhi has 1,045 water bodies recorded in revenue records and another 322 identified through satellite imagery. Yet demarcation remains incomplete. The authority informed the tribunal that DDA had demarcated only 124 water bodies.

“We have seen agencies passing the buck in the past too. This is why the State Wetland Authority was formed, but they too are unwilling to take any action,” said activist Diwan Singh, who has helped revive a water body in Dwarka’s sector 23 by channelling stormwater.