The World Culture Festival was in for criticism from the beginning. Even while the PM was scheduled to come , it rained cats and dogs and people were in doubt if the inaugural of the event would take place . But fortunately it happened. Now an expert committee has told the National Green Tribunal that the ‘World Culture Festival’ festival organised by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living (AOL) on the Yamuna has “completely destroyed” the riverbed.
In its report, submitted to the NGT on July 28, the seven-member panel, headed by Shashi Shekhar, the secretary of Ministry of Water Resources, said: “The committee observes that entire floodplain area used for the main event site i.e. between DND flyover and the Barapulla drain (on the right bank of river Yamuna) has been completely destroyed, not simply damaged.
The ground is now totally levelled, compacted and hardened and is totally devoid of water bodies or depressions and almost completely devoid of any vegetation.”
“The area where the grand stage was erected (and the area immediately behind it) is heavily consolidated – most likely with a different kind of external material used to level the ground and compress it.
A huge amount of earth and debris have been dumped to construct the ramps for access from the DND flyover and from the two pontoon bridges across the Barapulla drain,” the committee told a bench headed by Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar.
