Even as the World Water Day was observed on March 22, the management of water bodies in urban areas has emerged as a major issue for the city dwellers. Presently, we are living in an urban century. The UN forecasts by 2030 more than 70 per cent of the world population will be living in urban areas.
The question that comes to mind is has every person in Bhubaneswar ever cared to know how many water bodies or canals or lakes etc are in the city. The Government mechanism is busy in filling sand in the water bodies for construction of apartments or shopping malls.
Even some in the Government do encourage squeezing of canals to make roads to facilitate movement of heavy vehicles. Unfortunately, it bothers none when a sewer connection is connected to a canal illegally to flush raw sewer and in some cases the entire canal bed is taken over by informal settlers under the pretext of slums.
let us look at the Daya west canal located on the eastern side of Bhubaneswar. Way back in the sixties and seventies, the irrigation canal came into existence of city ecosystem. Which even till date controls eastern Bhubaneswar’s ground water recharging and to a large extent, the temperature of the city. But over the years, unplanned growth of the city converted the canal into nothing less than an open sewer channel that carries almost all raw sewers of households living around the canal. However, instead of solving the water problem, a couple of years ago, the Government launched Integrated Daya West Canal Road Project, under which a stretch of 7.8 km of the canal was squeezed to create a 10 feet drainage channel so as to develop a 30 feet width road on both sides of the canal for movement of heavy commercial vehicles within residential areas to decongest or connect commercial streets of NH-5 with NH-203 at a cost of Rs 30 crore.
Interestingly, after squeezing its width and construction of low height bridges within five to seven hundred meter distance, officials claim they will provide boating facility in the canal as part of tourism. Their idea may sound great but the question is can we expect a boat to float in a 10 feet width canalIJ
Similarly, in our city if one travels from south to north, then one will came across many natural drains flowing from west to east just like any other canals in European city. Sadly, people around it often used these natural streams as carriers of raw sewer or a dumping ground of garbage. Even the business community never minds to dump its garbage and the hoteliers throw their leftovers inside the channels.
The uncontrolled dumping of waste has converted the channels into mosquito breeding centres and causes flooding during even a little rainfall. The encroachers have undertaken illegal constructions and slums have built up near the channels adding to the woes of the civic bodies.So be it Daya west canal or any natural stream, mindless dumping of filthy material and lack of coordinated efforts to clean them have caused the water bodies of the cities to almost dry up.
These canals or streams became polluted with sewerage from nearby houses and apartment blocks. They were a perfect example of a balanced ecosystem till the late 80s and early 90s as these water bodies were lifeline for lakhs of population in the surrounding areas. The squeezing of water bodies has also prevented recharge of groundwater.
Many water bodies in Bhubaneswar could function like Dutch canals or even something like Udaipur (interconnected lakes) that suits its terrain. Sadly, our decision makers only know how to put concrete walls into a sewer carrier or convert it into road.Why the decision makers don’t feel restoration of canals into public amusement places having facilities of boating, fishing, walking and entertainment zone will make our city more inclusive than making it vulnerable to pollution, congestion and accidents etcIJ
No city in the world can survive by neglecting water bodies. Bhubaneswar can never be made a world class city without caring its water bodies. If streams and canals in Bhubaneswar can be converted much like canals of Europe, it will boost tourism and economy. We have to take a leaf from Gujarat which developed the Sabarmati river to boost its economy and meet the water need of Ahmedabad.
(Dr Rout is cofounder, local Governance Network. He can be reached at piyush.rout@lgnet.in)