The families who chose to endure Yamuna Khadar’s floods every year come from flood-prone states like Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, and Assam, where life alongside rising water is already part of daily survival.
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New Delhi: At 4 am on May 2, everything was gone: no roof, no walls.
Beervati (52) sat clutching her shivering children beneath a tarpaulin sheet. By sunrise, she was standing amid the wreckage of her home on Delhi’s Yamuna Khadar, her two children pressed close.
She and her husband, Dhanpal, had arrived three decades ago from Budaun in Uttar Pradesh, along with nearly 500 others in search of a better life. Today, they rent 12 bighas [approximately 7.5 acres] of fertile floodplain to grow seasonal vegetables. But every monsoon undoes their effort. Rains flatten their hut, submerge their land for weeks, and push them deeper into debt.
Beervati suffers from a persistent cough caused by frequent exposure to rain, as she is regularly drenched during the ongoing demolition
“Everything is uncertain here…the rain, the flood. I pay Rs 3 lakh in rent every year. But during rains my crops are destroyed, the house is broken, and still the landowner wants his money. They don’t care how we are surviving,” Dhanpal said, pulling a plastic sheet over what little they could save.
Like Beervati, more than 5,000 families endure this cycle every year, rebuilding on the same floodplain.
Beervati's family was drenched after the whole night and covered themselves with a tarp.
But not everyone stays.
Jagdish (49), a farmer, called Yamuna Khadar home for 25 years before the devastating 2023 floods forced him to leave.
“That day, the water rose so fast we thought we would die,” he recalled from his hometown Budaun, where he has since returned. “The flood took everything. Only we survived.”
“I didn’t want my children to live through that again, so we left,” he told 101Reporters.
In July 2023, Delhi saw its worst flood on record when the Yamuna rose to 208.66 metres, well above the danger mark of 205.33 metres. Embankments were breached, low-lying settlements and even planned colonies like Mayur Vihar and Civil Lines were inundated, and over 23,000 people were evacuated.
But leaving has not changed much for him. Back in his village, Jagdish does not own any land. He now works as a labourer, struggling to feed six children on irregular wages of a daily wage labourer. “Here there is no stable work. Our earnings in Delhi were better. But after the flood, I had no choice but to come back to a safer location.”
According to the World Bank, climate change could force 216 million people to migrate within their own countries by 2050
The cost of choice
The families who chose to endure Yamuna Khadar’s floods every year come from flood-prone states like Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, and Assam, where life alongside rising water is already part of daily survival. “When people migrate from rural areas, there are many push factors such as poverty, lack of jobs, economic pressures, environmental stress,” explained Umi Daniel, Odisha-based researcher and director of migration and education at Aide et Action International. “They arrive in cities unaware that settlements like Yamuna Khadar are also flood-prone. They settle here simply in the hope of survival, better income, or some opportunity.”
Besides attending school, most children assist their parents in selling vegetables
For Santosh (40), who came from Gazipur two decades ago, leaving is not an option as despite repeated losses, the floodplain still sustains his family. “I have two children in school. Where will we go? On one side, nature ruins our lives. On the other, the future is uncertain. If everything was good in our village, we would never have come here. But we are helpless.”
Sharda dreams of a better future for her children, staying in the flood-prone Yamuna Khadar despite the constant threat of floods and demolitions, because returning to her village means no education or work
Sharda (40), also from Budaun, has made the same calculation. “Sometimes, I feel like going back. But there is no employment there. In Delhi, we can sell vegetables in the Yamuna Khadar mandi and earn Rs 1,000 a day. In the village, we’d make only Rs 300-400. If we leave, our children’s future will be ruined.”
Satyendra is determined to find and enroll 100 dropout children every year, fighting to keep education alive in Yamuna Khadar.
Delhi and now earns barely Rs 350 a day. “Sometimes, I feel my decision was wrong. At least in Khadar I had regular labour work and a ration card. But going back isn’t easy either. I would need Rs 5,000 just for the trip, and even if I go, what will I find?”
For both Jagdish and Devendra, Yamuna Khadar was a place of both hope and risk. The city gave them a livelihood but also exposed them to nature’s fury. Now far away from the floodplains, they remain trapped between two difficult choices: one filled with fear, the other with uncertainty.
Unpredictable rain destroys their crops
Life on the river’s edge
The Yamuna Khadar is a low-lying floodplain spread across nearly 22,000 bigha [approximately 13636 acres]. Its fertile soil makes it ideal for farming, but every monsoon the river overflows, flooding the land for weeks.
“The main reason for flooding in the Yamuna Khadar is a natural one as it is a floodplain,” said Dr Shivani Singhal, research fellow at the University of Leeds. “It can take one to two months for the water to recede. After that, people return, buy bamboo and plastic sheets, and slowly start rebuilding their huts. But expenses are crushing since there is no work, no food, and on top of that the cost of reconstruction.”
"When storm came, I was clinging to the roof all night, holding on tightly, so my roof wouldn't get blown away in the storm. And, now these things are quite normal for us," says Harish, who lives at Yamuna Khadar
Across India, many flood-prone communities live with similar cycles, added Daniel. “In Assam, people still return to villages submerged by the Brahmaputra. In Odisha, seawater often enters and inundates homes. Unless people are clearly told that a place is a high-risk zone and relocated, they don’t leave. They have to live somewhere. In that sense, they are forced to stay.”
As the Khadar is a no-construction zone, families build temporary huts with tarpaulin, bamboo, and wooden poles. The flimsy structures are easy to rebuild after a flood, but they offer little security.
With no steady income and a collapsed home, Soni struggles to provide for her three children in Yamuna Khadar
There is also a sharp divide between landowners and tenant farmers, Singhal explained. “Landowners don’t actually live in the floodplains. They stay in nearby villages or in Delhi and just come to farm. But tenant farmers who are mostly migrants who rent land because they couldn’t earn enough back home and they are the ones living there. When floods come, it’s they who lose their huts, crops, even animals. Landowners escape the worst of the damage.”
Farmers sell their vegetables at the sabzi mandi, where they earn good profits
Rising risks
The Yamuna Khadar has always been a seasonal threat, but in recent years the floods have become more frequent and more destructive. Once, the river was a lifeline for farming. Today, it is a danger.
Data from the ICAR–Indian Agricultural Research Institute shows the sharp increase in extreme rainfall events in Delhi over the past five years: 948.9 mm in 2020, 1,755.6 mm in 2021, 1,089.6 mm in 2022, 1,151.7 mm in 2023, and 1,105.2 mm in 2024.
By mid-2025, Delhi had already recorded more than 255 mm of rainfall.
According to the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, the city has faced ten major floods between 1924 and 2023. The worst was in September 1978, when the Yamuna touched 207.49 metres, its highest level until then. But that mark was breached on July 13, 2023.
The World Wide Fund for Nature-India has warned that the flood threat in Delhi has only risen since 1978.
“When people are forced to leave their homes due to climate change events such as floods, droughts or storms, it isn’t just because of natural disasters. They are forced to move out because of poverty, joblessness, and social exclusion,” said Daniel. “Climate acts as a stress multiplier, worsening existing hardships and pushing people to look for alternatives. Many who come from non-hazardous areas, where they’ve never faced floods or cyclones, move to cities like Delhi or Mumbai, only to find themselves in equally or more vulnerable situations.”
“Take COVID, for example: migrants were treated harshly, yet within a month many went back to the same cities for work, because economic survival is their top priority. The question is what makes them so resilient that, despite everything, they keep coming back?”
Singhal talked about the limited choices migrants face. “In their villages, they might own land, but farming barely pays. They can grow enough to eat, but not enough to build a life, like sending their kids to a good school or saving for the future. Schools in many rural areas hardly function; there are not even teachers. Farming in Delhi gives them more income and more opportunities for their children. Over time, they lose ties with their villages, and going back is no longer an option.”
Daniel, however, added that the state cannot evade responsibility. “It is the government’s duty to plan for migration, but we still don’t have any official data or policy to guide us…not even an estimate of how many climate migrants India will have by 2050. This shows a failure to forecast or prepare. Migrants keep coming and they can. Migration is a fundamental right. If people are settling in unsafe or high-risk areas, it is not their fault.”
“Migrant workers are not a burden; they’re key contributors to the economy. If you provide them with decent infrastructure, their output will only increase. The state must ensure that citizens, wherever they move, are not excluded from their fundamental rights,” he added. “When people are forced to leave their homes due to climate change events such as floods, droughts or storms, it isn’t just because of natural disasters. They are forced to move out because of poverty, joblessness, and social exclusion,” said Daniel. “Climate acts as a stress multiplier, worsening existing hardships and pushing people to look for alternatives. Many who come from non-hazardous areas, where they’ve never faced floods or cyclones, move to cities like Delhi or Mumbai, only to find themselves in equally or more vulnerable situations.”
“Take COVID, for example: migrants were treated harshly, yet within a month many went back to the same cities for work, because economic survival is their top priority. The question is what makes them so resilient that, despite everything, they keep coming back?”
Singhal talked about the limited choices migrants face. “In their villages, they might own land, but farming barely pays. They can grow enough to eat, but not enough to build a life, like sending their kids to a good school or saving for the future. Schools in many rural areas hardly function; there are not even teachers. Farming in Delhi gives them more income and more opportunities for their children. Over time, they lose ties with their villages, and going back is no longer an option.”
Daniel, however, added that the state cannot evade responsibility. “It is the government’s duty to plan for migration, but we still don’t have any official data or policy to guide us…not even an estimate of how many climate migrants India will have by 2050. This shows a failure to forecast or prepare. Migrants keep coming and they can. Migration is a fundamental right. If people are settling in unsafe or high-risk areas, it is not their fault.”
“Migrant workers are not a burden; they’re key contributors to the economy. If you provide them with decent infrastructure, their output will only increase. The state must ensure that citizens, wherever they move, are not excluded from their fundamental rights,” he added.
It was the home of a family who left with lost hope
“When people are forced to leave their homes due to climate change events such as floods, droughts or storms, it isn’t just because of natural disasters. They are forced to move out because of poverty, joblessness, and social exclusion,” said Daniel. “Climate acts as a stress multiplier, worsening existing hardships and pushing people to look for alternatives. Many who come from non-hazardous areas, where they’ve never faced floods or cyclones, move to cities like Delhi or Mumbai, only to find themselves in equally or more vulnerable situations.”
“Take COVID, for example: migrants were treated harshly, yet within a month many went back to the same cities for work, because economic survival is their top priority. The question is what makes them so resilient that, despite everything, they keep coming back?”
Singhal talked about the limited choices migrants face. “In their villages, they might own land, but farming barely pays. They can grow enough to eat, but not enough to build a life, like sending their kids to a good school or saving for the future. Schools in many rural areas hardly function; there are not even teachers. Farming in Delhi gives them more income and more opportunities for their children. Over time, they lose ties with their villages, and going back is no longer an option.”
Daniel, however, added that the state cannot evade responsibility. “It is the government’s duty to plan for migration, but we still don’t have any official data or policy to guide us…not even an estimate of how many climate migrants India will have by 2050. This shows a failure to forecast or prepare. Migrants keep coming and they can. Migration is a fundamental right. If people are settling in unsafe or high-risk areas, it is not their fault.”
“Migrant workers are not a burden; they’re key contributors to the economy. If you provide them with decent infrastructure, their output will only increase. The state must ensure that citizens, wherever they move, are not excluded from their fundamental rights,” he added.
(101 reporters/NS)
This article is republished from 101 Reporters under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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