On April 20, spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar shared pictures of a project launched to clean seven Maharashtrian rivers on Twitter. Irony died a thousand deaths 30 minutes later as Shankar went on a rampage on the micro-blogging site against the National Green Tribunal (NGT). He was possibly less-than-pleased by the NGT’s hearing of the report compiled by its seven-member expert committee on damage to Yamuna floodplain owing to Art of Living’s (AOL) World Culture Festival, organised last year.

Yesterday, on April 27, the NGT issued a contempt notice against Shankar and asked him to respond before May 9 – which is the next date of hearing of the case. However, AOL released a statement saying that they have received no such notice.

According to Shankar, the NGT committee is “biased and unfair.” AOL has gone to the extent of claiming that the seven-member expert committee “was not scientific”. Sri Sri contends that the international fete has not done any damage to the Yamuna floodplains and if there has been any damage to the area, it’s not AOL who should be penalised, but the government agencies who allowed them to the hold the festival in the first place.

But the NGT report states that it will take at least 10 years for the restoration of the floodplains.  The report also adds, “It has been estimated that approximately 120 hectares (about 300 acres of floodplains of the west (right bank) of the river Yamuna and about 50 hectares (120 acres) floodplains of the eastern side (left bank) of the river have been adversely impacted ecologically at different magnitudes.” This does not include the 170 hectares of the parking lots near Delhi’s Barapullah drain.

While never expressly stating what was so “unscientific” about the expert panel, AOL has never taken responsibility for the activities carried out on Delhi’s biggest ground water recharge source. This is despite the report mentioning the following activities that took place either on, or impacted the floodplains:

• Clearing of vegetation
• Levelling and compaction of the ground and filling up of water bodies
• Construction of the stage and another temporary structure
• Construction of ramps
• Construction of pontoon bridges
• Construction of access roads
• Blocking the side channel of river Yamuna

The damage done to the floodplain is both physical and biological. While the spiritual guru continues to claim that AOL had minimal impact, the panel findings claim that the above resulted in the following:

• Change in topography – habitat diversity
• Loss of water bodies or wetlands
• Loss of floodplain vegetation and biodiversity
• Changes in substrata –nature of soil, consolidation and compaction, toxic substances
• Degradation and loss of ecosystem functions

The catchment wetlands on the western side of the Yamuna, which varies from 100 m to 400 m in diameter in size, were impacted and also silted. Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil or is present either at or near the surface through the year or in periods.

While the panel has suggested that it needs to desilt up to the depth of 1 to 1.5 metres, the small wetlands also need to be desilted by less than a metre. Notably, all these wetlands were interconnected by channels, which were completely filled with solid material. These external materials will have to be removed. The eastern side of the river was also damaged in a similar way.

On the western side itself, around 75 hectares was impacted owing to levelling, consolidation and compacting by AOL. The panel had recommended de-compacting up to a depth of 30-45 m — as the top of soil has become almost like a hard pan. Also, the area of floodplains which has to be de-compacted would be around 100 ha.

The biological damage might take years for restoration. “All the vegetation has to be restored by planting carefully selected native (as far as possible original riparian species) trees, reeds, sedges etc. and the colonisation of desirable aquatic vegetation and fauna has to be facilitated. This will require long-term monitoring and adaptive management,” the report said.

Importantly, the restoration of fauna such as fish and birds will take several years and have to be left to the natural migration and colonisation until suitable vegetation develops to support them.

The reports suggest the implementation of the restoration “at the earliest so that the benefit of next rain is obtained in the area.”

Physical restoration is estimated to cost Rs 28.73 crore, which should be taken up immediately and would take up to two years for completion.

Though the panel has estimated that it would cost and additional Rs 13.29 crore for the biological aspects of restoration, the time required would be over a period of 10 years and both need to be carried out simultaneously.

It is important to note that according to the findings of the panel, the recourse may not necessarily follow the anticipated path. “Natural factors, future human intervention, and invasion by undesirable species may cause drifts in the restoration pathway and will require continuous attention and intervention.”

Meanwhile, the petitioner in the case, Manoj Mishra declined to comment on the recent developments saying that he has been advised by his counsel not to speak on the matter. However, he did mention that the next hearing is on May 9.

On the other hand, Shankar’s media team has aggressively discredited the expert committee. The AOL spokesman Kedar Desai told Newslaundry, “according to us, the committee is not qualified to do this report at all.”  He further added, “initially the committee went to the site and did a half an hour – forty-five minutes cursory inspection of the site and made a bold statement that the damage was of Rs 120 crores.” According to Desai, the claims were made without doing any scientific assessment.

AOL also shared a copy of a letter, dated March 3, 2016, written by Shashi Shekar to the NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar. It said that the penalty of Rs 120 crore on AOL suggested by the three-member expert committee report submitted on February 22, 2016, was an “inadvertent mistake” which happened largely because Shekar was running a high fever and hence he couldn’t see the entire report prepared by the experts.

Desai said that the committee in now under self-created pressure to somehow justify their earlier claims. However, when asked what makes the AOL’s claim anymore ‘scientific’, he kept beating around the bush. Desai also accused the petitioner in the case of leaking details of the case to the press. “We don’t want a trial in the media; we want a trial in the court,” he said.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @tweets_amit.