NEW DELHI, Nov 18:
The dismal condition of Yamuna, the river on whose banks Delhi has sprawled and straddled and which in the face of a flood threatens to affect at least one million people living on its plains, forms the basis of a new study.
Conducted by students and faculty at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, the study rings a warning bell for the dismal condition of the river, which researchers say lies disconnected and neglected by the city.
“If the Yamuna floods, the city’s infrastructure from power plants to cement factories, the train lines, the pedestrian crossings all will be totally submerged. It’s a major natural disaster waiting to happen,” says Pankaj Vir Gupta, Visiting Professor, University of Virginia School of Architecture.
Since last January, a group of students and faculty at the school have been working on a three-year academic project to come up with “urban design speculations that have potential for re-establishing vital connections between New Delhi and the Yamuna.”
Along with Gupta, the research and design initiative is led by Professor Inaki Alday Sanz of the same university, who has been credited with designing important public spaces in Barcelona, Ibiza and Zaragoza among other places.
The team is now displaying their research which draws on global perspectives formed by studying urban planning of other mega-cities like Zaragoza by the Ebro river in Spain, Shanghai at the heart of the Yangtze River and even the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad.
The two-week long exhibition titled “Re-Centering Delhi”, which presents in the form of drawings and maps a series of design speculations that reimagines the relationship of Delhi with the Yamuna.
The display that began on November 14 at the Swiss Embassy takes into account ecological, social, political and infrastructural aspects of Delhi.
The capital city had experienced one of its worst flood in year 1978 when the Yamuna touched the 207-metre mark level, claiming 3,800 people according to the official death toll and leaving behind a trail of destruction.
According to research by the team led by Gupta and Sanz, there is one per cent probability that the river may touch the danger mark and cross the 208 metre mark forcing floods, an event that can take occur any year.
Researchers say all current embankments on the river that have protected the city for years are predicted to fail at this level.
“The general rule is that cities plan to accommodate a 100 year mark possibility of a flood of this magnitude.
“The Commonwealth Games Village, ITO bridge, the Delhi Secretariat, CM’s office, Sundarnagar, Humayun’s Tomb, Nizamuddin train station, Maharani Bagh, Friend’s colony, Mayur Vihar are among the residential developments that will be below the flood mark. This flooding can happen any year,” points out Gupta.
The research further states that 40 per cent of the 822 million gallons of the city’s drinking water distributed daily through 9000 kms of pipes, 550 pumping stations, and 61 underground reservoir storage, is being lost during distribution.
Also the 23 sewage treatment plants often function only at 50 per cent of their capacity due to inadequate supply and flow. As the drains and the water supply mains run parallel through the city, the sewage seeps into the leaking water pipes resulting in unsafe levels of E Coli and Salmonella in the drinking water supply to the city.
“There are certain acceptable levels of microbes in the water which has overshot in the case of Yamuna. These elements like coliform bacteria and others are 15 or 20 times more than the permissible level. The water is completely toxic and not suitable for human use,” says Sanz.
Sanz and his team also sheds light on the fact that the entire stretch of the river from the time it enters Delhi from Wazirabad till the time it exits Okhla city “is dead with no aquatic life.”
“There is no dissolved oxygen in the water. That explains the river is dead and has no life. The water is completely toxic. There are no fishes, no birds in this entire stretch of 22 km of the river,” says Sanz.
Besides pointing out the hazards posed by the flooding of the Yamuna, the three-year-long academic project by Sanz and Gupta has proposed certain changes in the architectural face of Delhi and better urban planning management.
“Incorporating the city’s heritage and the river is the most vital focus right now. Developing safe and legal low income housing societies on the river’s banks, restructuring the bridges across the Yamuna to give a better view of the river, and developing heritage walks along the banks of the river connecting Purana Qila, Humayun’s Tomb, Nizamuddin, Red Fort will be ideal to make the city beautiful as well as save the river,” says Gupta.
The research takes a look at other cities like Ahmedabad Zaragoza and Shanghai, which are located on banks of rivers to illuminate the case study of Delhi, which it says is in dire need of a urban planning rehaul.
“We have come here with a whole series of speculations that are holistic in nature. This is a very large problem and it has very defined focus that can be in the conversation. The government has to take one problem at a time.
“For example they should immediately look into the sewerage and untreated water which is being dumped in the river. Small focus points like these needs to be taken up,” says Gupta. (PTI)
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