New Delhi: Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) has identified on a 1932 map a nearly 2-mile-long waterbody marked to the north of Bhalswa Lake in northwest Delhi. The area falls around the present-day Kadipur, but current satellite imagery shows much of it has since been built over. In a letter to Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena and Delhi Development Authority, the non-profit organisation, which recently held an exhibition on old maps of the city, notes that a depression spanning nearly 10 acres is still visible at the site, suggesting there is potential to revive the lake. Public land is available to the north-west of this depression, the letter written by Manu Bhatnagar, principal director of INTACH, points out. He suggests that the lake can be “recovered” and the public land converted into a small biodiversity reserve or urban forest, benefiting the local population and providing space for compensatory plantation of about 8,000 trees.“The area has a natural contour that allows water to collect. However, concerted efforts are required by the authorities for rejuvenation and preservation of the lake, which historical maps show used to be massive,” according to the letter. No response from DDA has been received on this proposal.A few years ago, INTACH had identified another waterbody in Tikri Khurd in northwest Delhi’s Narela by studying old maps of the city. “After we moved National Green Tribunal, it directed the authorities to revive that waterbody,” Bhatnagar said.TOI had reported on the Feb 29-March 1 exhibition, ‘The Romance of Old Maps: Tracing Lost Landscapes’. Featuring maps dating from 1807 to 1984, which were pulled out from INTACH archives, the event traced the cartographic evolution of the city’s natural systems, waterbodies and routes that were later altered or erased. These maps captured the steady replacement of forests and wetlands with concrete structures in Delhi.
