Infra Watch: Ahead of G20 meet, PMC rushes to complete 300-metre sample stretch of river front development project

The RFD project includes the development of the 44 km of river stretch, which includes 22.2 km of the Mula river, 10.4 km of the Mutha river, and 11.8 km of the Mula-Mutha river. Meanwhile, the expansion of the city has increased the length of rivers passing through the city. The Mutha river stretch in the city now starts from the Khadakwasla dam as the village is included under the PMC limits as against the earlier boundary of Dhayari.

The project is huge and hopefully will be completed in the next five years, Kumar said adding PMC has started the work by allotting contracts on credit notes as against cash components to save civic funds.

The foundation stone of the project was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March but civil society members and environmentalists objected to its implementation while taking the issue to the court.

The ambitious RFD project to beautify the Mula-Mutha river is on the lines of the Sabarmati riverfront. It is presently divided into 11 stretches and work has begun on two stretches while work on a few more stretches would begin soon.

The project is being implemented with the objective of cleaning the rivers and making them pollution-free, reducing the risk of flooding, making the entire riverbank accessible to the public, retaining water, improving the city’s connectivity to the riverfront and integrating existing heritage structures, recreational, religious and socio-cultural activities, said Kumar.

PMC has said it will ensure 79 per cent of green embankments to reduce the risk of flooding with 33.9 km of rural riparian, 38.8 km of urban riparian and 19.8 km with engineered section. To make the river accessible to the public, it has planned to develop 50 new ghats in addition to the existing 20 ghats. It has proposed 270 new access points to the river as against the existing 53 access points. These will encourage social-cultural, recreational and religious activities.

The project plans to introduce sports entertainment by retaining water in the river by constructing one new barrage near Garware bridge in addition to the existing three barrages on the river. Thus, it can increase boating facilities from the existing two to an additional 16 new facilities at various locations on the river. Also, 18 temples alongside the river will be integrated with the project which will allow citizens to carry out religious activities. There are a total of 18 crematoriums and burial grounds alongside the river which too will be integrated into the project to beautify them.

The project would be implemented on 768 hectare of land, which includes 687 hectare of river land while 81 hectare of land would be acquired to ensure continuous embankments alongside the river. The river section would be 526 hectare, 180 hectare for the area under the embankment, and 62 hectare for public amenities.