Back from Gujarat, Delhi officials all for confining river

NEW DELHI: Highly impressed with the Sabarmati River model that they recently observed in Ahmedabad, Delhi's bureaucrats are largely in favour of channelizing the Yamuna. The public works department has sent a proposal to Delhi's environment secretary, making a strong case in favour of containing the entire 22km stretch of Yamuna through Delhi in a 650m wide channel and using the reclaimed land for development and "commercial exploitation".

It has also asked for setting up of a statutory authority that will be given control of the entire stretch of river in Delhi, including land and water. The proposition, which has been made on several occasions in the past, including by former managing director of DMRC E Sreedharan, has been highly controversial with environmentalists slamming the move to tame the river as one that will kill Yamuna. However, PWD officials believe that the river in its present form is inaccessible to people and channelizing it would be advantageous.

In its report submitted to environment secretary Sanjiv Kumar, PWD officials have pointed out two major problems. "The river has very little discharge during the dry season as most of its water is held upstream at different barrages and dams. Nearly 50% of the sewage waste generated by the city falls into the river untreated. Secondly, the river is managed by multiple agencies," the report says.

The solution proposed by PWD to also prevent "encroachment by cultivators and dumping of construction waste" incorporates "channelizing the river and reclaiming the land, thus making accessible public facilities like gardens, parks and lakes... A well-illuminated riverfront will add to the capital's skyline and will have the potential of creating a world class tourist attraction". Officials said thefloodplain has an average width of 2-2.5km but the maximum width required to discharge flood waters is 650m.