The Hindu : New Delhi News : Doctors support campaign for restoring green area

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Doctors support campaign for restoring green area

Neha Alawadhi

‘Doctors for Green': Doctors from leading Delhi hospitals led by AIIMS Faculty Association president Vinod Khaitan tying tricolour ribbons on a tree in the Capital in support of the campaign for restoring the Asiad Village tower green area.

NEW DELHI:“We all need a cause to work in life. Once we have a cause, it can turn into a movement,” says Dr. Rajiv Gupta, Consultant at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here, about the initiative “Doctors for Green” launched by some doctors in the Capital to commemorate Doctor's Day on July 1. Doctors from major hospitals of the city came together to support the cause of the residents of Asiad Village Society near Siri Fort Complex who have been fighting for restoration of their neighbourhood park for the past 13 years. The doctors tied tri-colour threads and ribbons on trees near the sealed property of a banquet hall company that had allegedly encroached upon the public park around the Asiad Tower.

Talking about Doctors for Green, Asiad Village Society secretary Captain Krishan Sharma said: “Doctors from all over Delhi came to support our cause. It was a symbolic way to go green.”

“I come to the Siri Fort area everyday for a morning walk from Green Park and I find everything has been commercialised over the years. But you cannot spoil playgrounds of children for commercial purposes,” said Dr. Gupta.

Earlier this month, a Supreme Court committee had ordered sealing of the banquet hall that used to rent out the encroached land for marriage functions. This caused many problems to the residents, besides taking away public space meant for recreational purposes and as a children's playground.

“We haven't slept properly in 13 years,” said Asiad Village resident and painter Arpana Caur, who has been actively fighting against the illegal encroachment. “There would be five, six marriages every day, and the noise levels were unbearable. No authorities intervened when we tried to complain, and now we fear that the owner will somehow get the sealing undone through his connections,” she said. There are more than 800 flats around the encroached land and nearly 50 of these belong to doctors from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences.

“On Doctor's Day, all of us got together to say that we want our green area back”, said Asiad Village Society vice-president, Saroj Sagar, who retired as Deputy Director General (Medical) from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

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