River Revamp

With the Sabarmati currently resembling a nullah, with 32 canals dumping chemical effluent and sewage into the river and slums lining the banks, it8217;s only Aga Khan-awardwinning architect Bimal Patel who can see in his mind8217;s eye, 8216;8216;No concrete, but large swathes of green, half-a-dozen gardens and parks, where you can sit and soak in the scenery. The water will be very clean and certainly won8217;t stink, as it does now. More than 60 per cent of the riverfront will have large green spaces, it is going to be one beautiful canvas.8217;8217;

20-20 Vision
APART from the green spaces, the 20.5-km stretch of the Sabarmati riverfront from the Vasna barrage to the Narmada main canal near Gandhinagar will have heritage corners, boulevards, promenades and walkways. While all these developments will be at an elevation along the east and west banks, the river-level will be taken up by walking and jogging tracks and park benches where the river can actually lap at the feet.

Since the breadth of the river bed varies, land is being reclaimed to ensure a uniform riverfront width of 280 meters. This implies the removal of all the garbage dumps, open-air toilets and slums that have encroached on the river right upto the dry river bed.

8216;8216;This entire stretch will be one clean and green island. To ensure the water is clean, we8217;re already plugging all the gutters and sewage pipelines that open into the river now. An interceptor pipeline is being laid along the east bank. All the existing gutter pipelines will be connected to it for eventual disgorgement at the Pirana sewage treatment plant,8217;8217; says Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Anil Mukim.

8216;8216;The slum-dwellers are being relocated to three different sites equipped with basic facilities. So far we have had no problem with them,8217;8217; he adds.

Built to Fit
IN the first phase, an 11-km stretch on either side of the river is being developed at a cost of Rs 550 crore. The second phase, expected to be launched in mid-2006, will see the development of nine km on each side for another Rs 650 crore.

While the money for the project is coming from a consortium of banks and HUDCO, the AMC hopes that if part of the riverfront is commercialised, the project will self-finance itself.

At a later stage, says the city commissioner, plots on 34 hectares of the total 162.80 hectares reclaimed will be sold for commercial and residential use. 8216;8216;It is a small patch of land between Nehru Bridge and Gandhi Bridge, but it should get us enough to pay for this project,8217;8217; he adds.

There is no danger, however, of the riverfront degenerating into one giant pau-bhaji joint. 8216;8216;It has to be a wide open space,8217;8217; emphasises Patel. 8216;8216;We won8217;t allow even kiosks to come up on the river-level walkways. Slots for food stalls and shops will be provided only at the upper level,8217;8217; adds Mukim.

And though ghats are being constructed at several points to facilitate the tradition of making offerings to the river, Patel is emphatic that no haphazard construction will be allowed. 8216;8216;Builders will be told that the skyline has to be uniform and harmonious,8217;8217; he adds.

While the proposed construction on reclaimed land along the riverfront is being opposed by residents currently living in flats on the river banks now, others, especially youngsters, are ecstatic. 8216;8216;The city has very few clean, open spaces where we can take a nice walk in the morning or spend a quiet evening. With so much pollution and congestion you don8217;t feel like going out anywhere. The Sabarmati river is a natural gift to the city but unfortunately till now we could not enjoy it. This project will give the river back to us,8217;8217; says Sudhir Nanavati.

8216;8216;The best part is, with 20 km of riverfront cutting through the city, one won8217;t have to go very far from one8217;s home to enjoy it,8217;8217; says Arvindbhai Goswami, who regularly takes a walk on Eliss Bridge.

8216;8216;It is due to lack of such spaces that the youth use pedestrian lanes to spend time on Nehru Bridge and Eliss Bridge. This is a much-needed project,8217;8217; says Snehal Joshi, a student.

Moreover, a four-lane 8216;West River Drive8217; on the west bank promises to provide a pleasant drive in the congested city.

French Connection
JUST as the Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association8217;s ATIRA building bears the stamp of French architect Le Corbusier, the Sabarmati riverfront, too, has a French connection. The riverfront idea was first floated in 1961 by French architect Bernard Kohn, then residing in the city.

After the Centre for Environment Planning and Technology authored a feasibility report in 1997, French architects and conservationists pitched in to help the AMC restore heritage buildings in the historic walled city under an MoU signed between the civic body and the French government.

Probably sensing the urgent need for the riverfront to provide an identity to the city, Chief Minister Narendra Modi, after laying the foundation stone on April 12, 2003, gave a deadline of 1,000 days instead of the original five years. The Rs 1,200-crore project is being executed by the special purpose vehicle Sabarmati River Front Development Corporation Ltd.

Playing on the pools

WORK is in progress near Shanti Van, the samadhi of Jawaharlal Nehru. Labourers contracted to the Delhi Development Authority DDA are carving out pools that will be filled by drains collecting stormwater from Old Delhi. DDA officials hope the pools will be among the highlights of the riverfront project when it is finally completed.

Because the river that flows by half a km away may not be worth a watch.

Notwithstanding the legendary pollution of the legendary Yamuna, the DDA is pressing ahead with its riverfront plans. Due to be completed in another five years, the project envisages landscaped vistas, cycle tracks, shady paths and even vantage points for river views.

The first phase of the plan8212;a four-km stretch8212;is near completion. 8216;8216;Once this part is developed, people can have visual access to the holy river. Apart from cycle tracks, parking lots will be constructed so that people can park without congesting the roads,8217;8217; a DDA official says.

While the area covered by the first phase was cleared of the Yamuna pushta a huge slum settlement on the riverbed in 2003, the second phase is held up by the return of some slum-dwellers as well as some religious structures.

None of the DDA plans, however, takes into account the fog over the Yamuna clean-up. Three agencies have a stake in upgrading the 22 km of the river that flows through Delhi: The Delhi Jal Board DJB, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi MCD and the Delhi State Industrial Development Corporation DSIDC.

With 3,296 million litres of waste dumped into the Yamuna everyday8212;most of it untreated sewage or industrial effluent8212;the DJB8217;s job is to monitor the maintenance of the domestic sewage lines. But the 19 major drains of Delhi continue to contribute upto 96 per cent of the river8217;s pollution load.

The MCD, too, has failed in constructing toilet blocks that would curb open defecation: an analysis by the National River Conservation Directorate shows 60 per cent of the 800 toilet complexes8212;costing Rs 179 crore8212;are unused because they have no water or are too expensive or just wrongly sited.

And so far as the DSIDC is concerned, its work has been hijacked by its acrimony with various agencies: The Centre, which allegedly hasn8217;t paid Rs 36 crore in past dues it foots 25 per cent of the costs and the Common Effluent Treatment Plant CETP societies, with which DSIDC is at loggerheads, again over outstanding dues.

Maybe that8217;s why DDA is focusing on the pools.

A hit on the Hooghly

Sharmi Adhikary

JUST eight months after it was launched, the Kolkata Metropolitan Developmental Authority KMDA is almost done with the Hooghly River Front Project. Part of the reason, of course, is that it8217;s focus area is just 300 metres, from the Fairlie Place Jetty to the junction of Clive Ghat Road and Strand Road.

The project comes on the footsteps of the well-received Millennium Park, the first KMDA project on Kolkata Port Trust land, which was thrown open in December 1999. A landscaped 25-acre leisure area with gardens and walkways, it was a big hit with space-starved Calcuttans.

8216;8216;We wanted to extend the area, so the KoPT provided us the land just to the east of the park for the riverfront project,8217;8217; says Chunar De, additional chief engineer, Ganga Action Plan sector, KMDA.

The project, involving the construction of walkways, terrace gardens, colourful fountains, a palm avenue and a glasshouse restaurant, is expected to be inaugurated on December 27. One of the many projects undertaken as part of the Ganga Action Plan Phase II8212;the Rs 1.96 crore-bill is being picked up by the Ministry of Environment8212;the effort is not directly dependent on the state of the river itself.

8216;8216;This is just an endeavour to add to the heritage value of the place,8217;8217; says Chunar De, additional chief engineer, KMDA. 8216;8216;Earlier, the area was a haunt of anti-socials and pockmarked with garbage dumps. The park will put a full stop to all that by restricting entry.8217;8217;

Before the KMDA moved in, the stretch was taken up by derelict warehouses and other dockyard paraphernalia. 8216;8216;It was impossible for anyone to go there for a walk. Since this front is an opening of the city to the river, we thought of beautifying the scene,8217;8217; De adds.

The none-too-pleasant state of the river itself is not worrying the officials any. To back their stance, they point to the fact that Millennium Park has, in the six years of its existence, attracted over 70 lakh visitors.

METRO UPGRADE

The Sabarmati riverfront is only one area where Ahmedabad8217;s changing

AHEAD of the AMC elections in October, Chief Minister Narendra Modi, elected to the assembly from the city8217;s Maninagar constituency, promised residents that he8217;d ensure the councillors would work. It was just one way of keeping up the pressure on the urban upgrade.

8216;8216;We want Ahmedabad to be the next big business and commercial hub in this region, but without the traps of an unplanned urban centre,8217;8217; says Urban Development Minister I K Jadeja. 8216;8216;The state government is very keen on maintaining the old, traditional Ahmedabad while developing around it. The riverfront is just one initiative, there are lots of other projects happening.8217;8217;

GREEN, CLEAN: From April 2005, the Regional Transport Authority, Ahmedabad, is registering only CNG autorickshaws. According to the Gujarat Pollution Control Board, the majority of the 60,000-odd autorickshaws plying in the city use kerosene mixed with petroleum, an extremely polluting fuel, which is responsible for most of the city8217;s breathing troubles.

FUELLING CHANGE: As the benefits of CNG become evident, old rickshaws, too, are converting to the new fuel. In fact, the parrot-green CNG autos fondly called popatiya autos are already winning the popularity stakes with the black autos, now referred to as kalias. 8216;8216;Passengers, before boarding, ask if the auto is fuelled by CNG. When I say no, they walk away,8217;8217; says Bholabhai, a driver for the past 15 years, who is now considering switching to the clean fuel.

BUS WISE: The Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Corporation, which runs the city bus service, is introducing CNG buses and converting diesel buses to the new fuel. 8216;8216;Of the 600-bus fleet, 272 are already CNG. By December-end, we hope to take the figure to 300. By next December, the entire fleet will be powered by CNG,8217;8217; says AMTS transport committee chairman Asit Vora. Also, about 100 Gujarat State Transport buses plying between Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad have switched to CNG.

DUST BUSTERS: Mission ENDURE ENsuring DUst REduction, a Rs 105-crore project launched in July 2003 by city-based NGO National Council for Civil Liberties NCCL and AMC, is paying off. 8216;8216;Unpaved road shoulders and footpaths created a lot of dust. With ENDURE, we have paved more than 56,000 sq m of road shoulders in the city, starting with areas in front of schools and hospitals,8217;8217; says NCCL president V K Saxena. The process is simple: After AMC clearances, NCCL digs up six inches soil from the road level and, after a round of watering, prepares a two-inch bed of sand. Then it fixes pre-cast cement concrete interlocking blocks to make the pavement. 8216;8216;Since no cement is used to fix the blocks, it8217;s eco-friendly. The gaps allow rainwater to seep through and recharge the aquifers.8217;8217;

BUILDING BRIDGES: By December 2006, the city will have three new bridges across the Sabarmati, in addition to the five that already exist, and five flyovers in the city. The bridges will connect Vasna with Behrampura, Wadaj with Dhudeshwar and Hasnol with the Sabarmati area. The AMC is building flyovers at Om Society in Naroda, Dakshini Society in Maninagar and Shreyas Foundation in Vasna, while the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority has identified bottlenecks on the main ring road at AEC junction, Memnagar junction and Shivranjani junction. Each flyover will have the two middle lanes reserved for the Bus Mass Rapid Transport System.

BUS PASS : To improve and enhance the capacity of the public transport system in the city, the AMC is also considering the Bus Mass Rapid Transport System, involving a 60-km circular road exclusive to buses and buses on feeder routes. The Rs 425 crore-project is being designed by the Centre for Environment Planning and Technology.

STREET SMART: The AMC8217;s Rs 150-crore Integrated Street Development Project identifies, according to Municipal Commissioner Anil Mukim, 8216;8216;about 140 km of important roads, which will be redesigned with an eye to better engineering, pavements, parking space, signages and street lighting and, most importantly, bicycle tracks to ensure the safety of cyclists as mainstream traffic becomes heavier and faster8217;8217;.

WATER WORKS: Learning from the drinking water shortages of Chennai and other cities, the AMC is augmenting its supplies to cater to an anticipated population of 65 lakh. While the Narmada Main Canal is the principal source of drinking water, a 50-km long gravity pipeline is being laid to the Kotarpur Water Works plant to bring 60 lakh gallons daily at a cost of Rs 21 crores. The capacity of the Raska filteration plant is also being augmented.