Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Standing Committee of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) Friday cleared a controversial proposal to reroute a 3-km stretch of the natural course of the Bhukhi Kans (Bhukhi canal) at an estimated cost of Rs 40 crore as part of the “flood mitigation project” of the civic body, with the Congress alleging that the proposal has been made for “corrupt reasons to waste taxpayers money” without conducting a survey.
The Standing Committee also approved four other proposals of the Vishwamitri Project Department for the clearing, resectioning, desilting and dredging of a 25-km urban stretch of Vishwamitri river at a total cost of around Rs 60 crore — handed out to four different contractors. The work on the dredging of the Vishwamitri will commence next week, with the civic body setting a 100-day deadline to complete the work and mitigate flood risk for Vadodara city during the upcoming monsoon.
The proposal to divert the Bhukhi Kans — divided in two phases — was placed before the Standing Committee from the Stormwater Drainage Project department of the civic body, seeking approval to reroute the kans from its existing course towards its “upstream” near Chhani Jakatnaka in the first phase, and from Chhani Jakatnaka to Nizampura crematorium in the second phase at a cost of Rs 18.44 crore and 21.14 crore, respectively.
The proposal states, “The natural Bhukhi Kans begins from the North Zone and meets the Vishwamitri River near Kala Ghoda after crossing through the Nizampura crematorium area and Navayard road. In many parts of the kans, rehabilitation work has been previously undertaken… It has been seen that an enormous volume of water enters into Vadodara city through the Bhuki Kans from the Chhani upstream area, which also caused massive flooding in 2024 in the North Zone… Therefore, it has been decided to re-route an approximately three-kilometer stretch of Bhuki Kans…”
However, Congress corporator Ami Ravat, who had sent a letter to Standing Committee Chairman Dr Sheetal Mistry, seeking that the proposal be rejected, vehemently opposed the plan citing “corruption”. Ravat said, “Vadodara witnessed three devastating floods last year. There has been extreme encroachment in the kans around the Vishwamitri and we have been demanding for the last ten years that the VMC must remove the encroachments and rejuvenate the river to ensure that the water should go into the kans and then to the river so that the entire system is revamped…”
Ravat added, “In the North Zone, due to the bottlenecks in Bhukhi canal, there was waterlogging in several areas for more than four days. It was only when the bottlenecks were broken down by hydraulic machines that the water receded. It means that at a few places, wherever water was blocked, it needed to be cleared. But the proposal seeks rerouting Bhukhi Kans through areas which have never witnessed flood that will also cause traffic snarls and require an expenditure of over Rs 40 crore of the taxpayers’ money…”
Ravat also alleged that the rerouting has been planned “without any survey”. “The VMC has not even carried out a survey of Bhukhi before bringing this proposal to the Standing Committee to understand the width of the kans as well as the available area, should it require widening in the future. There has been no planning or survey of any sort before deciding to use Rs 40 crore of taxpayers’ money. It is a clear case of corruption where the intention is to just show expenditure. We have demanded that they should first demarcate the river as per DLIR maps and measure the width after removing encroachments before any resectioning is planned.”
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
