New Delhi, July 9
In protest against the proposed games village for the 2010 Commonwealth Games on the riverbed of the Yamuna, Magsaysay award winner Rajinder Singh has decided to launch a "satyagrah" in the Capital and for one he is sure that "come what may the planned infrastructure on the environmentally precarious site will not be allowed to become a reality".

Talking to The Tribune from Agra, where the 2001-Magsaysay award winner is working on traditional water harvesting with the help of local people on banks of the Yamuna, he today said, "whether or not the government pays heed to environmentalists' protests, nature and people will ensure that Commonwealth Games village does not come up at the proposed site".

"On one side the government is spending crores on conservation plans for rivers and on the other it is bent on destroying these natural assets and converting them into drains," he added. Environmentalists have been protesting against the proposed village on the riverbed as they feel that it would cause irreversible harm to the river, its fragile eco-system, the water table in the region and the people living in the area.

In fact, a few days back a group, comprising institutions like the IIC, INTACH and an NGO Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan also sought the Prime Minister's intervention on the matter besides exploring legal recourse in the form of a PIL. Rajinder Singh too adds that the government should shift the site to an alternate location where the games village infrastructure would be safe against natural calamities like earthquakes.

"One wonders why they are insisting on erecting the village at the site where the sand is almost 40 feet deep and is located in the seismic zone V," he questions.

While the exact plan of the satyagrah will be finalised when he reaches Delhi tomorrow, Rajinder Singh is sure that the movement against the village will begin well before the construction activity begins.

"The government razed several small temples and ghats in the name of encroachment but allowed Akshardham temple to come up in the riverbed because it involved big names and money," he said stressing that temple and the Delhi metro's infrastructure was a sign of the fact that bigger companies and MNC were eyeing the water-rich Yamuna-Ganga doaab area.