A team comprising HCP company members, JUDCO officials and others met with villagers from a number of villages of Namkum on Thursday for taking the project of beautification of Subarnarekha River near Ranchi. Members of HCP Design, Planning and Management Private limited, the company which has been authorised to carry out beautification of Subarnrekha river stretch in and around Ranchi, discussed the beautification plan with villagers of Subarnrekha Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar, Kamli Toli, Nauva Toli and a couple of others.
The members of the team said that meeting was satisfactory. They also said that the villagers put some genuine concerns, which would be kept in mind at the time of beautification of the river process. However, they didn’t divulge much about the meeting.
A senior official of Jharkhand Urban Development Corporation (JUDCO) said that HCP possessed huge experience of beautification of rivers like Sabarmati in Gujarat and a number of other lakes and water bodies, and beautification of Subarnarekha would be done the way Sabarmati was renovated and beautified.
Subarnarekha, which originates at Piska/Nagri in Ranchi area to end at Bay of Bengal in Odisha with a flow stretch of some 395 Kilometers, was once called the lifeline of Jharkhand. But this dying river has become the victim of the greed of the rich and the apathy of the powerful with rampant encroachment in its riverbed throughout the city and outskirts since last some years.
Project Manager of this project from HCP Prajesh Rawal didn’t divulge much about the difficulties of the projects and concerns. However, he said that the work will kick off soon.
The beautification plan consists of construction of pathways, plantation, construction of check dam and a number of other beautification which would make the bank of Subarnarekha look alike Sabarmati banks in Gujrat.
Subarnarekha river has been the lifeline for the people of the Chotanagpur Plateau since decades. Apart from feeding agricultural fields, this river has been a source of gold for the locals, who sieve hundreds of kilograms of river sand to pick up a few ounces of the yellow metal.
However, no one from either the HCP or the civic bodies has said anything about waste flowing in from a number of sieve rages and drainages into the river, which has turned this river look like any other drain of the city. The river is almost dying at its inception point, which is a treat to a number of falls of this river.