construction on Gujarat’s ambitious Sabarmati Riverfront Development
Project in Ahmedabad, restarted in the second week of March, 2007. The
project had been stalled since August 2006, when heavy floods inundated
the city.
Following this, the National Institute of Hydrology (nih) and Indian
Institute of Technology (iit), Roorkee, were asked to re-evaluate the
project design, in the light of the river’s carrying capacity, and see
whether the execution of the project would damage the river’s ecology.
The team submitted its report early March, suggesting two measures: a
gauge to determine flood levels where the Narmada’s main canal crosses
the Sabarmati; and dredging upstream of the Vasna barrage, implying a
problem with the river’s carrying capacity.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (amc) set up the Sabarmati
Riverfront Development Corporation Ltd (srfdcl) in May 1997, “to
revivify the city centre by reconnecting it to the river”, says DK
Mahajan, executive director, srfdcl. That August, amc appointed the
Environment Planning Collaborative (epc), an Ahmedabad-based urban
planning consultancy firm, to prepare a plan. In the first phase, epc
identified a 9-km stretch of the riverfront extending from Subhash
bridge to Vasna barrage and proposed to reclaim 162 hectares (ha) of the
riverbed (see map: Disputed stretch). srfdcl planned to sell or lease
out a part of it to finance the project. In 2003, it extended the
project to cover a 20-km stretch—from the Narmada main canal to Vasna
barrage. “But in 2005, this was put on hold and phase i was extended 1.5
km beyond Subhash bridge to accommodate the Kotarpur waterworks and
Duffnala stormwater outfall. As of now, srfdcl is developing 190 ha,”
says Bimal Patel, an architect-planner of the project. This constant
change in the plan has escalated the project cost from Rs 361 crore in
1997 to an estimated Rs 1,100 crore today. An issue that remains unknown
is how srfdcl plans to service its debts.
cont'd....
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