The document is a letter from Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi to the Prime Minister of India requesting that the Regional Plan 2021 be held in abeyance by the NCRPB at their 14 January 2014 meeting. For over two years, NGOs and citizens have urged the NCRPB and Haryana government to properly consider environmental impacts in regional planning as required by law, but their concerns have been ignored. Approving the plan without the Ministry of Environment and Forest's inputs would be a dereliction of duty and violate the recent Supreme Court judgment requiring an environmental regulator to consider such plans. The letter requests the Prime Minister to direct the NCRPB and Ministry to properly address environmental issues in the regional plan.

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DO No. Disaster/2014/1
Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi
1102/Tower 1, The UniworldGarden
Sec 47, Gurgaon-122018
Mob: 9818768349
12th January 2014
To,
Sh. Manmohan Singh
The Prime Minister of India
Government of India, South Block, New Delhi-110011
ACTION U/S 28/39 OF NCRPB ACT 1985 &
DERELICTION OF PUBLIC DUTY BY MoEF –
14.01.2014 BOARD MEETING OF NCRPB
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
1. I recall that when you stopped me in the corridors of the
Finance Ministry one January day in 1995 and asked" What is
the Army in uniform doing in North Block?", and smilingly
asked Montek, walking alongside, "Please help the Colonel to
get his job done so that the Army is out of here fast", the work
was done so fast, in three hours, that a surprised Financial
Advisor (Defence Services) called me back to ask how I could
obtain the signatures of a dozen joint secretaries and additional
financial advisors of the Defence Ministry and the entire
Finance Ministry in less than two days on such a thick file full
of notings. I did not tell him that the Finance Minister helped
me to obtain this series of Government Financial Sanctions
which were obtained just in time on a Friday for a Monday
Supreme Court hearing on 16 January 1995. Perhaps he would
have thought that I was perpetrating a silly joke on him.
2. Again on 29 June 2006 I had informed you that “We have
since moved from the Twentieth Century into a new India of

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the Twentyfirst Century, of the Information Age. At the least
one would have hoped for the basic necessities of power and
water having improved from 1995 to 2006. Alas! Such is not
the case. The power situation in Palam Vihar, Gurgaon has
been such in the last 48 hours that the inverters are not able to
recharge. There is no media report, there is no Government
intimation, nothing. Today communication is electronic and
without power there can be no electronic communication.
Providing barely 7 to 8 hours of power in 24 hours is apt to
choke the communication lifelines of the Information
Superhighway.”
3. You were kind enough to direct that matter be taken up with
the Haryana Government and today we have nearly 90% grid
uptime in Gurgaon and will soon have piped water too.
4. The NCRPB is failing to carry out proper planning in
the National Capital Region in accord with the mandate of
Disaster Management Act, 2005 and Principle of Carrying
Capacity and Sustainable Development which is well
settled law of the land today. The NCR includes many
areas that have great environmental, ecological and
biodiversity sensitivity and this issue has not been
addressed by the NCRPB at all in Regional Plan 2021
necessitating action by the Central Government u/s 28/39
of the NCRPB Act, 1985.

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5. Kindly refer to the attached documents, (1) 2012.01.12
Mission Gurgaon Development (MGD) letter to DGTCP
Haryana, (2) 2012.03.22 DGTCP Haryana letter to CCP NCR
Haryana, (3) 2012.03.25 Citizens Letter to DG Forests MoEF,
(4) 2012.05.18 DG Forests MoEF letter to Chief Secretary
Haryana, (5) 2012.05.31 Citizens letter on Godavarman WP
202 of 1995 06.07.2011 to Secy MoEF and CS Haryana, (6)
2012.06.06 DG Forests MoEF letter to Principal Secretary
Forests Haryana, (7) 2012.06.17 Citizens Objection Letter
Mangar DDP 2031 to DGTCP Haryana Secy MoEF and
NCRPB, (8)2012.09.21 Letter to NCRPB on carrying capacity
and Email 19.09.2012 to Secy MoEF, (9) 2012.10.01 MGD
Objection Letter GMUC DDP 2031 to DGTCP Haryana Secy
MoEF and NCRPB, (10) 2013.04.03 Sh Bhupinder Singh
Hooda DO letter to Sh Kamal Nath requesting reversal of
affidavit filed in SC by NCRPB, (11) 2013.07.30 NCRPB DO
letter No. K-14011 02 2012-NCRPB-VolIII to Secy MoEF,
(12)
2013.08.30
MGD
Observations,
Objections
and
Recommendations to Revised Draft RP 2021 to NCRPB
copied by Email dated 30.08.2013 time stamped 2.33 PM to
Hon'ble Minister of State for Environment and Forests of
India & (13) 2013.10.17 MGD letter to MoEF Request to
examine RP 2021 (14) 2013.10.31 INTACH Environmental
Safeguards in the Regional Plan 2021 (16) 2013.11.22
Undermining urban planning The Hindu (17) 2014.01.06

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Hon’ble Supreme Court Judgment in Godavarman WP 202
of 1995 to appoint EP Act Sec 3 Regulator.
6. That for two years from January 2012 NGOs and citizens
have importuned the powers that be to heed their cries for
environmental justice as is apparent from the letters
abovementioned which show that the NCRPB and Haryana
Government have ignored the directives of the MoEF with
impunity. Today the atmosphere in the NCR is so highly
polluted that as per scientific studies reported in respected
journals new born babies are likely to die in the thousands in
next few years just by breathing the air around them. Water
pollution is so bad that in places like Faridabad even slum
dwellers are forced to use RO Water Purifiers. This is the
ecological disaster referred to in the Disaster Management
Act, 2005.
7. That the letter of Sh Bhupender Singh Hooda dated
03.04.2013 to Sh Kamal Nath was an attempt to influence the
course of justice in re NCRPB Affidavit in the Hon’ble
Supreme Court and needs to be deprecated. Also attempts of a
very senior IAS officer of Haryana to influence the same
Board was detected in RTI and finds mention at para 4(q) and
10 of MGD objection letter dt 30.08.2013 attached.
8. That an examination of the website of the NCRPB reveals
that the NCRPB has either not received or not published the

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observations/objections that were sought by Ms Naini
Jayaseelan,
Member
Secretary,
NCRPB
from
Dr
V
Rajagopalan, Secretary, MoEF vide DO letter No. K-14011 02
2012-NCRPB-VolIII dt 30.07.2013. MGD letter of 17.10.2013
to Dr V Rajagopalan, Secretary, MoEF also did not result in
filing of observations/objections to the Regional Plan-2021 by
MoEF. That the letters mentioned in para 5 above (attached)
make clear that the MoEF was made completely aware of the
deficient planning in Haryana NCR because each and every
letter mentioned above was known to or received by MoEF
either by post or by Email. When such serious ecological
matters are at stake it is clear dereliction of duty if MoEF has
either not replied to the NCRPB letter dt 30.07.2013 or the
observations/objections have not found place on the website of
NCRPB.
9. The objective of the Regional Plan is to control land-uses,
avoid haphazard development and promote balanced growth
and development in the NCR. Chapter IV, Section 10, subsection 2, of the NCRPB Act, 1985, states that, “The
Regional Plan shall indicate the manner in which the land
in the National Capital Region shall be used, whether by
carrying out development thereon or by conservation or
otherwise.”

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10. Reputed organisations like INTACH, PEACE and The
Hindu and many others found fault with Regional Plan 2021.
11. NCRPB and MoEF may kindly be directed to place MoEF
observations/objections with remarks of NCRPB on the
website and till such time the Regional Plan 2021 be held in
abeyance and if they fail to do so action under Sec 28/39 of
NCRPB Act, 1985 be taken as deemed fit.
12. It is therefore requested that Regional Plan 2021 be
held in abeyance at NCRPB meeting on 14.01.2014 till
inputs of MoEF are received. This would also be the
correct view as it has now been held on 06.01.2014 by the
Apex Court in WP 202 of 1995 that environmental
concerns must be considered by a regulator appointed
under Section 3 of EPA, 1986 and not by the Government
before any regional plan having environmental sensitivity
is approved.
Regards
Place: Gurgaon
Date: 12th January 2014
Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi
1102/Tower 1 The UniworldGarden
Sec 47, Gurgaon-122018
Mob: 9818768349