NEW DELHI - The activists of Yamuna Satyagraha here on Sunday protested against the expansion of the Delhi metro rail line touching the banks of river.

The activists observed the opening day of the Yamuna Bank station as “Black Day” in protest against “DMRC’s continues encroachment on the Yamuna’s floodplain in the form of the Yamuna metro complex”.

“We are protested against the encroachment of Yamuna’s floodplains by the Delhi Metro Rail,” said Manoj Mishra, activist, ‘Yamuna Satyagraha’.

Complaining that the new Yamuna Bank depot is located within 300 metres of the river in violation of Delhi High Court orders, the Yamuna activists have written a letter to the to Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Construction, E. Sreedharan that while on the one hand all slum clusters were removed from the riverbed in keeping with this order, the DMRC now has been allowed to construct on the floodplains.

On the other hand after inaugurating the Yamuna Bank station, E. Shreedharan said there is no chance of degradation of the Yamuna floodplains because of this new metro rail line.

“We are not letting out any pollutant water or pollutants into the river from this side. But then just imagine what tremendous convenience it would be to the people because we have to definitely come over here to go to Noida and Vaishali areas. There is no other way. So we had to occupy this place but we have ensured that there is no degradation at all,” he added.

The opening of this new extension is likely to reduce the road traffic from the two main bridges namely Nizamuddin Bridge and ITO Bridge connecting East Delhi with the rest of the city as both the bridges are major bottleneck points in terms of traffic. (ANI)