| Happy Independence Day! The crime, the Covid, the politics and the potholes: Capital Letters — Keeping track of Delhi's week, one beat at a time, through the eyes and words of HT's My Delhi section, with all the perspective, context and analysis you need. In this edition of Capital Letters, as India turns 75, Mayank Austen Soofi brings you a special Tricolour edition of his weekly Delhiwale dispatch. You’ll find it at the bottom of this newsletter. Now, how many parks does a man require? Delhi is generally regarded as a green city, and rightly so. Over 23% of the city is covered by trees and forests, according to the 2021 India State of Forests report, a number already above the Centre’s 20% target for regions in the plains. A 2019 analysis also found that Delhi was the greenest of India’s metros, with 41 square kilometres of such patches per capita. The Capital is also home to 18,000 parks and gardens spread across its 1,483 square kilometre area. But, and here’s the catch, as you may have guessed it, a large number of these parks are concentrated in just five districts, while congested neighbourhoods like north-east Delhi fall far, far behind. “A study by the Centre for Youth Culture Law and Environment, found that parks cover 8.1% of south-east Delhi’s total area, with the district topping the list in terms of percentage covered. West Delhi is second, with such spots spread over 6.6% of the district and East Delhi third with 6.3%,” HT’s Jasjeev Singh Gandhiok wrote. South and New Delhi districts have parks and gardens on 6% of their area each. At the distant tail-end of the spectrum, just 1.2% of north-east Delhi is covered in these green patches.  (Click to expand) Even in absolute numbers, north-east district is the laggard of the lot, with just 142 parks, compared to south Delhi, which has over 2,300. This disparity has laid bare the disparity in access to crucial public utilities (especially in the era of Covid-19, when open spaces are more crucial than ever), and economic equalities surely have a role to play. Another cause (not entirely unlinked from economic concerns, experts said, may be the rapidly expanding margins of Delhi, a growth that has left little room for green, substituting it all for concrete. “There is ample green space in central and New Delhi as Lutyens’ was a planned area, whereas with the city slowly stretching out wide, more and more unplanned development took place. This has, unfortunately, not given the same importance to parks,” Chandra Bhushan, CEO at iForest, an NGO involved with environmental research. Several displaced as Yamuna swells The Yamuna is a strange river. Just a few months ago, we were writing about prolonged dry spells in the river, which were leaving large swathes of Delhi dry. That was on the back of a severe shortage of rain. Now, the Yamuna is overflowing, displacing hundreds of families who live in hutments along the riverbanks, in what is now a nearly annual affair. Water levels in the Yamuna shot past the ‘danger’ mark on Friday, after Haryana released hundreds of thousands cusecs of water from a barrage. The levels are measured by a metre at the Old Railway Bridge, and a reading of 205.33m is considered the danger mark. The rise set off a desperate scramble among state authorities to vacate families from the floodplains, though delayed efforts in some parts meant that some people left with whatever they could - clothes, tables, chairs and food, and moved to a service lane by the river. Around 37,000 people live by the Yamuna river in Delhi, according to state records. The floods also presented a major concern for the largely agriculture-dependent residents of the riverbanks - wrecked crops.  (Click to expand) Induvati, a 30-year-old, who lives on the floodplains near east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, said she and her family started evacuating their hutment early Saturday morning. In the absence of any government-managed tents in this part of the city, she and her family members were left with no option but to stay on the service road. “We farm for a living, apart from working odd jobs. We had planted ladyfinger, gourd, and ridge gourd. Now, everything is finished. The cauliflower crop in its infancy has also been destroyed. The next few months look difficult now,” said Induvati. The river relaxed on Sunday, with levels dropping 0.74 metres below the danger mark at 4pm, but authorities continued to advise people to stay away from the water and telling residents of the banks to live in state shelters till the swell recedes entirely. Crime rates up in Delhi, once again The national capital reported more crimes in the first half of this year than it did over the same period in 2021, showed data released by the Delhi Police, raising concerns about law and order in the city. But the major number to come out from the police release was a staggering increase in thefts at home, which jumped more than six-fold. Till July 15, 2021, Delhi logged 1,158 thefts at home, with this statistic leaping to 7,561 in the same period this year. To be sure, police spokespersons said allowing residents to file FIRs online may have led to the numbers surging. It must also be noted that large parts of the first half of last year were spent under lockdown and Covid-19 duress, so any comparison with this period will have to be placed in perspective. However, no matter what the context may be, crime rates across the board have gone up, and residents said this change is perceptible on a local level.  (Click to expand) “I remember people putting iron bars for safety, but the thefts continued. The most we could do was install gates, but now the authorities call that encroachment so we are stuck. Police cannot take care of each and every household,” said BS Vohra, president of East Delhi RWAs Joint Front told HT’s Hemani Bhandari. Crimes against women surged as well, the data showed, with FIRs under relevant sections of the IPC jumping 17% compared to the same period last year. The maximum spike in the number of cases was reported under the cruelty by husband section. Cases under this category reported a nearly 30% spike. While 2,096 such cases were registered in 2021, this year the number went up to 2,704. Delhi has, over the years, had a poor record of women’s safety, and this year has clearly been no different (worse, even). The Capital’s new police chief, Sanjay Arora, has a crucial task on his hands. At current pace, Delhi landfills will take 197 years to flatten Delhi’s three waste mountains (the biggest is in Ghazipur, the other two are in Okhla and Bhalswa) will be cleared only in the year 2219 (that’s 197 years from now), if the current pace of work continues. After some math, working out the rate of garbage being dumped at the landfills every day and putting that against the waste being cleared, HT’s Paras Singh detailed three possible time-frames for a landfill-free Delhi: - No more fresh waste is dumped, and the garbage is cleared at the current pace (5,315 tonnes are removed everyday).
In this situation, it will take 14 years and 3 months for the landfills to leave Delhi’s horizons.
But this situation, of course, is unlikely. - Garbage is added and removed at the same rate as now
Here, it will take 197 years to flatten the waste mountains. - The garbage is added at the same rate, but clearing rate is upgraded (and tripled)
In this case, the three landfills can all be rid of in around 7.5 years.  Of course, there are umpteen variables at play here, most of which are beyond prediction: The amount of garbage Delhi generates is only likely to go up, as the city’s population rises; The clearance rates will surely be ramped up, thanks to major public and political momentum against the hazardous landfills; Alternative sites will likely be identified to dump waste, easing the stress on the three extant site (the civic body’s efforts to divert waste to sites in Rani Khera, Sonia Vihar and Ghonda Gujran have been resisted by local residents, understandably). However, HT’s analysis frames the current scenario quite aptly, and is an important reminder to authorities to wake up and smell the garbage. So, when will the landfills finally be flattened? Watch this space for the next 197 years. | 
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