The Ridge, Delhi’s oldest natural heritage and forest, is sculpted on quartzite deposits, which have cracks from 2 billion years of natural history. This recharges 60% of the rain falling on it. All rain fed aquifers surrounding the ridge are an incredible resource for pure water and must be preserved by protecting their recharge zones.
Instruction to Read maps
The Map Site ( Constructed from Google and Forest Department data for the Asola and Bhatti sanctuary )
The orange line is the ridge boundary
The dashed white line is the interstate boundary
The red lines enclose the encroachments
The continuous white lines enclose the village areas. The orange and white lines enclose the authorized colonies. The full green lines indicate forest area inside encroachments. The dashed green lines indicate the Asola and Bhatti mines sanctuaries.
The dashed orange lines indicate areas whose status cannot be verified.*
LEVEL 1) At the first level the map shows the entire area of the ridge on the scale given on the map.
LEVEL 2) Left click on the display above for the South Central and the Southern Ridge and the scale expands to double for the clicked half selected. Squares appear on the screen. Each square is 1.6 KM X 1.6 KM
LEVEL 3) Left click on any square and you can see the whole square in an expanded scale where you can make out all ground features. Each square on this level is 200meters X 200meters
Right Click takes you back to the previous level.
Area Tool
There is a simple provision to make a polygon around any area. By tracing a closed path on the polygon by left clicking clockwise or anticlockwise on consecutive vertices will immediately give the area of the polygon on the screen.
The map has to read as follows
The protected ridge is all the rocky outcrop of quartzite on the land.
The protected forest is all the area that has any dry thorn forest rootstock on it (Godavarman DEC 1996 case definition used by EPCA)
The Mehrauli Chattarpur aquifer of about 50 sq km( where ‘farmhouses’ are located today) is surrounded by rocky outcrop but inside its perimeter the hard rock continues to exist underground and the soil is weathered quartzite which comes from the ridge and gives it its high water recharge value. This is a protected area for water recharge (2).
Taking this into account, we have marked the entire area that is protected .
Included in this are the four notified reserved forest ridge areas: The Northern Ridge ( 0.87 sq km ), The Central Ridge ( 8.64 sq km ), the South Central Ridge( 6.26sq km) and the Southern Ridge (62 sq km) which are contiguous are bounded in the south by the Haryana state boundary.
The official area of the ridge notified as reserved forest is 77.77 sq km
There is much area that is marked on our maps which is notified protected forest or notified reserve forest. Any other forest areas come under the Godavarman Dec 1996 case as used by the EPCA in which no non forest activity is allowed regardless of ownership and intended use.
No detailed ground level map of the Delhi Ridge is available from the authorities . This a great and very valuable resource of forest, oxygen and water and green for the citizens of Delhi and in danger of being lost. It has been violated by persistent building pressure from encroachments. Hence, such a map is badly needed to stop encroachments and for its protection by all citizens. For the first time the citizens can get such a map online.
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Formation of group
Ridge 
