Breaking Delhi’s Green Lungs and How Phase IV of the Delhi Metro Is Adding to Woes Of The Dying Ridge

The Delhi Ridge Area, the rocky, arid outcrop of the ancient Aravalli Range that weaves through the city, has long served as one of Delhi’s faint but vital green lungs. Once declared a reserved forest under British rule in 1913 and again by the Delhi Forest Department in 1994, the Ridge’s boundaries have remained obscure, contested and fragmented. 

Over decades, the Ridge has quietly lost ground. Encroachments, illegal tree-felling, land diversions and infrastructure projects have sliced into what was once a contiguous stretch of forested terrain. Multiple agencies, the forest department, municipal authorities, and urban planners, claim parts of the Ridge, often with overlapping or conflicting definitions. The result: much of the Ridge exists in legal limbo, with large swathes left unprotected, unexplored and underappreciated.

Now, the city’s grand plan to expand its metro network threatens to carve through what remains, cutting corridors through the Ridge at a time when its ecological value was perhaps needed most.

Phase IV Metro Ambitions Meet Ridge Fragile Realities

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC)’s Phase IV expansion includes two new corridors — one running from Inderlok to Indraprastha, the other from Lajpat Nagar to Saket G Block.  According to the court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC), these corridors will traverse approximately 28,685 square metres of morphologically ridge-like terrain. This land is recognised as ecologically sensitive by the court. 

For the Inderlok–Indraprastha corridor alone, the plan involves disturbing roughly 20,915 sq. m, impacting some 122 trees. The revised Lajpat Nagar–Saket route is somewhat less invasive, about 7,770 sq. m with only six trees slated for pruning rather than felling. 

In April 2025, the top court granted permission to proceed, provided that DMRC consents to a set of stringent environmental safeguards. The CEC’s conditions include adherence to the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, 1994, prior permission for any tree-felling or pruning, transplantation of trees under expert supervision, compensatory planting of 1,280 indigenous trees on non-forest land, and a deposit of 5% of project cost to the Ridge Management Board (RMB) for conservation efforts. 

Why the Ridge Matters and Why Its Loss Is Alarming

Supporters of the expansion argue that Phase IV will vastly improve connectivity, ease traffic pressure and offer crucial public transport infrastructure, especially for south and central Delhi. DMRC asserts that tunnelling and deep-underground corridors, finalised for many sections, will minimise surface disruption. 

Yet, for environmentalists, the threat goes beyond a few trees. The Ridge represents one of the last remaining fragments of Aravalli-derived ecology within the capital, a natural barrier against urban sprawl, a repository of native flora, and a fragile but valuable carbon sink. As noted by Dr. Ravi Chopra, senior scientist, “One metro corridor cutting through ridge-land is not just an instance of urban development, it is a symbolic breach in the ecological integrity of the city.”

Moreover, the Ridge’s fragmented ownership and poorly defined boundaries only make it easier for development projects to justify incursions. As a representative of Toxics Link argued, “‘Barren forest land is no one’s baby’, ensuring that no institution will take responsibility, a reality that the metro expansion threatens to exploit.”

The RWA members of Vasant Kunj Sector B Pocket-1 staged a protest at Jantar Mantar yesterday, demanding for a stoppage on construction around the ridge. “Before the tins started piling up and construction work started on the ground, along with the Supreme Court protection to it, the area used to be filled with chirping birds and butterflies, but nothing is there now except dust and smoke,” said a RWA member to us.

The members have been opposing this construction since 2024, but nothing has come to fruition. Now the property is under legal dispute with a petition filed by the RWA residents under the NGT saying it flouts DDA guidelines.

Another RWA member said, “There is a school nearby; the most affected will be the children. The Ridge is the green lung of Delhi, with current levels of pollution and everything else, this should be the last thing to be touched.” As we talked with the members about how the ridge is being affected, also because of the metro, one member said to us, “That is even worse. With all this happening, I wonder if by 2028, when the metro ends, we will travel at light speed with oxygen masks and nebulisers in hand?”

After the Tracks Are Laid, What Comes Next?

Granted, the CEC’s conditions attempt to cushion the environmental blow: tree transplants, compensatory planting and financial contributions to conservation. But history shows that such mitigation measures rarely restore what was lost. As a professor of ecology at a Delhi university, who was also part of the protest at Vasant Kunj, warns, “Transplanted trees are no substitute for a living, connected ridge, species survival, soil health, wildlife corridors, micro-climate regulation all suffer.”

With completion of the deepest underground sections already underway or finished, the metro’s steel arteries and other construction giants are being laid beneath and around the city.  But beneath that pavement, cracks are forming in the fragile ecology of the Ridge. Once the tracks are laid and tunnels sealed, reversing the damage will be next to impossible.

In a city choking on pollution and shrinking green cover, Delhi cannot afford to treat its Ridge as expendable. Phase IV may deliver infrastructure, but at what cost to the city’s lungs is a question that remains unanswered.