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| A riparian zone (river bank) is a very productive and critical area along a river. It helps in absorbing floodwaters, feeds aquifers or vice versa, purifies water, provides habitat for fish, water birds and riparian vegetation, and acts as an invaluable environmental education site for children and citizens. Riparian areas are efficient at processing organic matter, sediments and sediment-bound pollutants. They also regulate microclimates, remove phosphorus and nitrogen containing compounds, reduce coliform and pathogens and transform animal waste and chemical fertiliser into less harmful substances. Riparian areas are extremely valuable ecosystems and can even serve as natural water treatment facilities, saving money, time and the environment. For more information, refer to 'Putting a price to riparian corridors as water treatment facilities' (http://www.watershednetwork.org/). Unfortunately, the importance of riparian zones is not appreciated at all and we have been losing these areas to short sighted urban planning and encroachments. |
Since the past few years (especially since 2007), Ram Nadi has been experiencing devastating floods. The intensity of these floods has been directly proportionate to the encroachments along its banks and its channel by huge apartment complexes, which interestingly have legitimate building permissions. So whatever happened to the green zone mentioned in the Development Plan?
In October 2010, citizens of the Bavdhan and Pashan area experienced the fury of the Ram Nadi and its tributaries when nearly the entire Bavdhan area was submerged under water. In a single society, residents faced Rs. 2-3 lakhs in damages each; 4 people drowned, including a 25 year old PhD researcher working in the National Chemical Laboratory. The streams, which were built over, broke their confinements; walls, shanties and houses collapsed causing further casualties.
Learning their lesson the hard way, Bavdhan's citizens pulled together and have been following up with the Pune Municipal Corporation and Collector’s office to remove encroachments from the river's path. Most of these encroachments are in the form of posh apartments complexes that profess to be ‘in the lap of nature’, or near the ‘enchanting brookside’! These buildings, including the Indian Meteorological Department Hostel, have been built right in the river and stream channel. When two such buildings are built on opposite banks, they form a narrow channel, which accelerates the flow of water, causing more erosion and disruption downstream. Roads (including the Pune-Mumbai Highway) have been built over the river and its streams, with tiny pipes underneath to allow the river to flow. Most of the time, these pipes are choked with garbage and construction debris before the rains, so the roads above become the river’s alternate route to flow.
A positive outcome of this crisis is that it has brought the citizens of Bavdhan together, and has raised their awareness about their river, its ecology, the water birds and goods and services that it can provide, if used judiciously. Two months earlier, a group of residents halted the work of a company on the bank opposite to them, which was planning to build a retaining wall in the river channel. It was refreshing and heartening to see engineers, housewives and children holding placards and shouting slogans to save ‘their’ river.
The construction did actually stop and the company also hastily removed all the muck that it had deposited in the river bed. However, this was made possible only because the residents actually went to the site personally and halted work. All their letters to the company and the administration had fallen on deaf ears. On the 26th of last month, they also organised a river walk where residents as well as journalists walked along the Ram Nadi and saw the encroachments themselves.
Pune Jal Biradari and Bavdhan residents sent a number of letters to the Pune Municipal Corporation and Collector to remove these encroachments. However, the same departments who had promised ‘fast and proactive’ flood protection and river cleaning works after the floods, did not respond with any positive action. In retaliation, a group of concerned residents and members of Jalbiradari Pune have been on a relay hunger strike against the apathetic response from the Commissioner and Collector, demanding strict action again encroachments immediately. On the first day of the strike, no official from the PMC or the Collector’s office visited the venue.
And Ram Nadi is not alone - all urban water bodies in Pune (and India!) share this fate. Citizens of the neighbouring Dev Nadi, for instance, have created this Wiki page for their river.
It has become evident that Pollution Control Boards or Municipal Treatment Plants have made no difference to the health or quality of water in our rivers. Let us hope that such citizen-led initiatives, which are born out of dire need and love for their rivers, will pave the way for a more participatory and sensitive approach to urban river management.