I was standing in a waste dump, with pigs, garbage and dumped clothes all around me when Mr. Shailendra Patel told me to take off my shoes.

Just a few steps ahead of me was a miracle.

In the midst of the dump, Mr. Patel went down to a sparkling spring of clear water and kneeled down. This was a living stream in the heart of Pune city, with “development” all around, with a sewage carrying nallah flowing right next to it. Crystal clear water gushed out of rock crevices, there was a small sandy pool with tiny fish, water skaters and a desolate looking statue of a jaldevata on a stone ledge.

Mr. Patel talked with ladies with their washing loads who came to the spring, with school children running past, late for the school, with construction workers brushing their teeth nonchalantly next to the spring. The problem was he could not talk with the people who stayed in huge apartment complexes right next to the spring. They find the place too filthy, despite the fact that the tankers that supply water to complexes fill up from springs like these.

One more problem was that the Pune city does not recognise existence of such springs and the City Development Plan has not marked this as a spring or stream. It is up for grabs. A building complex will be built over this at any time.

This led me thinking, how does a city recognise &  protect living streams and springs? How can we make the city development  plan leave them out of development activities? Are there examples where this happened somewhere? Continue reading ““Streams don’t like to be in Channels” Interview: Stream Restoration, Austin Watershed Protection Department” →