Plunge Pools

UNTIL recently Raipur was known as the city of ponds. It has too few now to deserve that label. Of its 133 ponds, only about 25 remain. In t...

UNTIL recently Raipur was known as the city of ponds. It has too few now to deserve that label. Of its 133 ponds, only about 25 remain. In their place have come up commercial complexes and residential colonies.

After Raipur became the capital of Chhattisgarh, ambitious plans were drawn up to save and beautify 12 ponds and inter-connect four others. More than Rs 4 crore were spent on the scheme. Another Rs 4 crore was approved for Raipur8217;s oldest pond8212;the 600-year-old Budha Talab. But then the project was dropped. Says Raipur Mayor Sunil Soni: 8216;8216;The project lacked transparency and was approved in undue haste.8217;8217;

Now instead of cleaning up the pond, the municipal corporation is spending

Rs 25 lakh to install a statue of Swami Vivekanand at the Budha Talab8212;also known as the Vivekanand Sarvar. Until three years ago, the talab was the only place in the city where images of Ganesha and Durga were immersed but a ban put an end to it. Garbage, however, continues to be dumped in the talab. A study by the State Pollution Control Board says: 8216;8216;The water in some of the ponds is not fit even to be touched.8217;8217; But every day hundreds of people living in neighbouring bastis have their morning bath in these ponds.

THE history of the ponds of Raipur goes back far. A documentation by former Raipur Development Authority chairman Ganga Ram Sharma shows that most of these ponds were built by the state8217;s former rajas. 8216;8216;Every pond has its own history and separate usage. Due care was taken to keep the water clean and curb its misuse. The ponds were also inter-connected to allow circulation of the water. Not a drop of water was allowed to be wasted. But today, the situation has reversed,8217;8217; says Sharma.

For years the ponds in Raipur had kept the water table high and the city cool during summer months. But not anymore. Says Soni: 8216;8216;We have drawn up an ambitious plan8212;no pond will allowed to be filled up and those existing, especially the Budha Talab, will be developed. We have sent a Rs 300 crore project to the central government for funding by some international agency to save the city ponds.8217;8217; The state government too, he says, will chip in.