New Delhi, Aug. 11: The Delhi government may have pinned its hopes on the Commonwealth Games to push the city into the world-class category, but it is making the green brigade see red.

The Commonwealth Games Village that is coming up on the Yamuna riverbed poses a serious threat to the capital’s water supply.

Delhi depends on groundwater and the development work in the area will deny the Yamuna its sources of recharge, said Manoj Misra, the convener of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, a group of NGOs and environmentalists.

The Yamuna floodplain, he explained, has a natural underground reservoir that gets replenished every monsoon. It also has a unique ratio of sand and soil that enhances its ability to absorb water and keep the city’s water-table alive. If this area is cemented — which is what will happen if the Games village is built — this system will become defunct. Eventually, the groundwater will also get polluted.

“All the tube-wells rely on this groundwater. Where will this water come from unless there is ground to recharge?” asked Misra.

The Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan has been staging protests at the site for the past two weeks.

A large part of the recharge area has also been eaten up by the Akshardham temple — a sprawling sandstone complex on the riverbed.

Environmental concerns apart, the constructions planned for the Games village were “not about sports, but is a major land deal”, said Dunnu Roy of Hazard Centre. “The DDA has arm-twisted everyone. It has used the peg of ‘national interest’ to sell it to the middle classes.”

The Games village, as a Right To Information application reveals, has been cleared, ignoring the concerns raised by an expert appraisal committee of the environment and forests ministry that studied the proposal in 2006.

“The ministry has been cajoled, tricked and browbeaten into diluting the conditions of environment clearance. Since the due process of law has been short-circuited on extraneous considerations like lack of time and ‘false’ national interest, the clearance as it exists is illegal,” said Misra, who filed the plea.

The panel had reservations about the location of the Games village and had told the DDA to find an alternative, but the civic body rejected it.