While efforts are being made across the country to rejuvenate rivers, encroachment around rivers in Garhwa town is rampant for the past two decades. The Saraswati river, in the middle of the town, has been transformed into a drain, while the Danro river, which is considered to be the city's lifeline, has not been able to escape from encroachment.
Saraswati River passes from west to east in Garhwa town while the Danro River goes from south to North. Due to the passing of two rivers, the city of Garhwa was settled here, say locals. The encroachment of rivers continuously changed the danger of their existence, but people could not understand.
Today, the Saraswati river has turned into a huge drain. large buildings are being constructed by encroachments on both sides of the river and many buildings have already been built. At the same time, the filthy water of the sewerage of the people of the city settled on both ends of the river gets deposited in Saraswati River, which has become quite contaminated.
At the same time, there is a continuation of encroachment on the river Danro in the middle of the town. On the banks of Danro, several clubs have been set up and dozens of people encroached the land near the river Chhath Ghat making a temporary shops. It is noteworthy that on the directions of the court regarding encroachment, the district administration had finished their duties by completing the work on the square intersections of the road. But the district administration have remained mute spectator on the loss of the rivers.
Garhwa DC Neha Arora said that firstly rivers need to be cleaned. “In this regard I have directed the SDO to clean both the rivers after preparing plan. later action will be taken to remove the encroachment by marking the rivers,” she said.
First, people living by the banks of river and reservoirs considered a symbol of prosperity. The first population was low and people used to take bath and drinking water from these rivers.
In the summer, residents of these rivers received coolness from the rivers.