The Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, located not far from the river’s banks, have been speaking for the river for well over a decade but the focus has been more on evicting slum dwellers or setting up treatment plants that manage effluent discharge into the river. An ecosystems approach to the river has been largely missed by the judicial eye, even as its limited orders keep searching for compliance.

In a departure from this general judicial trend, the Delhi High Court in an obscure judgment almost a decade ago had observed: “The DDA or the Delhi Administration are not the proper authorities to plan for the development of inter-state rivers. For that purpose a special legislation exists, namely, River Boards Act 1956, which provides for River Boards which have special and exclusive powers to plan for the development of inter-state rivers, riverbeds and flood plains.” Ten years later, a ‘river board’ for the Yamuna is still not in the offing as the central law under which it should have been created has itself been lying dysfunctional for over 50 years now!

Even if the river boards have not come in place, other models could have been tried. Two of our states, Manipur and Rajasthan, have separate flood plain zoning laws. Why can’t Delhi have one? This question throws up many more. How can Delhi have a flood plain zoning law when at least one side of the Yamuna river bank has already been ‘constructed’ with no flood plain left to protect? How can legislative will to enact such a law be generated?

It is no surprise, then, that a model Flood Plain Zoning Bill, drafted and circulated to the states in 1974, and then again in 2000 by the Union government, has failed to elicit any response from the states. Notwithstanding this, there is no escaping the fact that the demarcated flood plain zones cannot be protected in the absence of a strong legal regime.

As conscious citizens, we have to keep asking for a river protection law even if the prospect of one seems distant! Meanwhile, given that we might be destined to lose the ‘sponge’ that can absorb excess flood waters, I wonder whether it may be better to shift focus to revamping flood forecasting and warning systems and learning to live with disasters rather than fight a losing battle on protecting the flood plains of a river-turned-sewer.

The writer is a Delhi-based lawyer who has worked recently with the World Meteorological Organization on protecting rivers