Out of a total area of around 300 acres, the government has cleared 100 acres - almost twice the size of Lodhi Gardens - of the marshland for housing projects of the PWD and the Delhi police. "An inter-departmental committee on water bodies inspected the area and gave me a report that it is fit for housing projects.

So we have cleared it," Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta told HT. The PWD owns 40 acres out of the 100 acres and the rest is with Delhi Police. The decision hasn't gone down well with conservationists and locals.

"Nowhere in the city will we find such a huge marshland, capable of hosting so much freshwater aquifer underneath," said Manu Bhatnagar, conservationist with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). "This conforms to the definition of marshlands by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In fact, the old survey of India map and the master plan for irrigation and flood control, mark this as a huge source of water," Bhatnagar said. "The Delhi High Court, in a 2002 ruling, had directed that all water bodies would have to be revived.