srinidhi - 18 August, 2020 | Bangalore | rajakaluve | swd | remodel | Analysis

CM Yediyurappa in his Independence day speech introduced a plan to spruce up the Rajakaluves in the city and convert them to public spaces. Sounds grand and ambitious. However as they say the devil is in the details. One of the sources mentioned this to the press:

“At places, the cross-section width of the canal is 8 feet, but in other places, it is 16 metres. Where the space is small, the idea is to create a single patch of greenery. In larger areas, the drain will be shrunk to accommodate bicycle and walking...

more here

The idea should ideally be that the expected/projected water flow in the SWD should drive the size of the drain and inturn make space for greenery and not the other way around. Else we will look at a disaster when there are rains and the SWD has to hold the necessary water flow.

The other key statement made was 

“The real challenge is not accommodating greenery along the canals, but stopping the flow of sewage into the canals. Currently, 150 million litres per day (MLDs) of raw sewage flows into the canals being considered for phase 1,” 

The city planners have all this while completely forgotten what the S in SWD means and Sewage Water Drain seems to be the general understanding. Now to redo the whole thing will need money and resources which will be more than any budget can provide for. The entire sewage lines need to be replanned in the entire city. This itself will kill the idea totally.

Instead the govt needs to be prudent and try take on pilot projects which are do-able, for example the wetlands between Bellandur lake and Varthur lake. This has been detailed here

A proposed look for the Rajakaluve here is as below:

This plan is very much do-able in the rajakaluve stretch between Bellandur and Varthur lake. It will be easier to stop sewage from getting into the rajakaluve as well as the width is considerable and the wetlands can be developed reall well.

Hope the govt makes some sensible decissions around this and make it work!

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