By allowing the Char Dham Highway to go ahead, putting aside all the environment, safety, disaster vulnerability and even norms and affidavits of the Ministry of Highways and the Defence Ministry, as well as the report of the expert panel set up by the apex court, the Judiciary has again failed the Environment, among other things. This is contrary to the generally held belief that Judiciary stands up for the cause of the environment. That belief has no real basis, as can be seen again. This is also failure of the governance, experts and environmental groups, besides also the failure of the media too.
Continue reading “DRP News Bulletin 20 Dec 2021: Judiciary fails the environment AGAIN”Tag: Narmada Canal
Whither Riverfront Development? A photo tour of Sabarmati River
Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project has converted the Sabarmati River into an urban space by reclaiming nearly 200 ha of land and displacing nearly 10000 people.
Concrete embankment walls of height 4 to 6 meters have been created for a stretch of 10.4 KM on both banks with walkways.
Width of Sabarmati channel is uniformly narrowed to 275 metres during the riverfront development project, when naturally average width of the channel was 382 metres and the narrowest cross-section was 330 metres.
The original character of the river is changed completely from a river to a canal.
The water that is impounded in Sabarmati Riverfront stretch is not Sabarmati river water, but Narmada River Water.
Water from Narmada canal is released in Sabarmati upstream of the Riverfront Project.
City of Ahmedabad or Sabarmati River has no right on Narmada River Water, it’s the water meant for drought prone areas of Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat. Thus the water we see in Sabarmati in Ahmedabad is water deprived from the drought prone areas.
Sabarmati Riverfront Project has not resulted in cleaning of Sabarmati River. Instead the pollution from untreated sewage and industrial effluent has been diverted near the Vasna Barrage downstream of Riverfront project stretch.
Even after the Riverfront Development Project, Water Quality of Sabarmati River downstream of the Vasna Barrage is extremely poor.
So can we see Sabarmati River rijuvenated or even cleaned anywhere? The 10.4 KM long stretch is like a canal, upstream of it is a dry river in most days and downstream is one of the most polluted stretch.
(Photos taken in September 2014 by author)
Amruta Pradhan, SANDRP amrutapradhan@gmail.com
Post Script: January 21, 2015: Another report on reality of Sabaramati success story: http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?programId=10350679&contentId=1826603
SANDRP 