Pallavi Kalia

The  project on urban natural drainage channels has been conceptualized, based on the study of natural drainage channels - their contextual background and the existing scenario. Here, the approach derived from analysing the above has been contrasted with that of the planning authorities to result in more long term and sustainable solutions to various problems concerning the channels.

On the basis of topographical characteristics, the National Capital Territory of Delhi has been divided into five major drainage basins viz. Najafgarh basin, Alipur basin , Shahadra basin, Kushak-Barrapullah basin and Mehrauli basin. This drainage system is such that  all waters collected through the main drains, link drains and small rivulets are directly or indirectly discharged finally into the Yamuna.

The drainage network

Though there are a total of 17 main drains which fall into the Yamuna , they can be clubbed into six main subsystems or basins - the Najafgarh, Shahadra, Barapullah, Bawana, the Wildlife Sanctuary drain discharging through Haryana territory and other drains directly falling into the Yamuna, on the right bank. Following the Najafgarh and the Shahadra basins, the Barrapulla drain forms the third largest subsystem which drains the entire South Zone area through numerous branches including the Kushak, Nauroji Nagar, Kidwai Nagar, Chirag Delhi and Lajpat Nagar drains, the combined water from which fall into the river Yamuna below the Inter state bus terminus at Sarai Kale Khan.

Existing scenario

These storm water drains, forming an integral part of the urban fabric, flow through areas having varied landuse, cutting across the road and rail network of the city at various points. Though primarily meant for carrying the surface runoffs from various parts of the city to be finally drained into the Yamuna, these channels are fast turning into major carriers of sewage and industrial effluents which cause extensive pollution of the river as well as the groundwater sources. Apart from the damage caused by the discharge, the primary source of which are the unauthorized colonies and industries coming up along the channels, the drains themselves have become continuous strips of garbage dumps and squatter settlements.

This gross misuse of the channels has led to a general fall in the environmental quality, to the extent of disturbing the ecological balance of certain areas. The callous attitude of the planners as well as the residents, who have done construction alongside the channels, have created unhygienic conditions and encouraged crime in its vicinity.  Also these spaces, owing to the way they are conceived as a part of the city’s fabric have developed as backyards, acting as barriers between the various districts and neighbourhoods, cutting up the city in small patches which do not come together at the edges to form a cohesive whole.

Various agencies are responsible for the maintenance and development of the storm water drains (natural and municipal) of Delhi, depending on which drain falls under whose jurisdiction. These agencies are the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), the cantonment board, Delhi Water Supply and Sewage Disposal Undertaking (DWS&SDU)  and the Irrigation and Flood Control Department (IFD).

The Task Force which was constituted by the Land and Building Department of the Government of Delhi in July 1993, is of the view that in order to overcome the problem of encroachment and pollution, the drains could be covered, but the process should adhere to certain basic requirements in terms of technical considerations involved. Thus, although the committee (according to its report) agrees with the notion of utilising the space recovered by covering  the channels for commercial, residential, recreational, social or cultural uses, it deems it essential to first check the feasibility of changing the landuse of the channels (as of now under the utility land use) and then recommend an environmental impact study of the area to be carried out which would take into account all relevant aspects, before covering or building anything on the channels.

As it is apparent, this approach does not realise the potential of the drainage channel network itself and instead of capitalising on its intrinsic or inherent characteristics, the channels are wrongly conceived as entities, equivalent to pieces of land which are available for building at various locations in the city. Thus, instead of making these natural features more prominent, they are being hidden and made to disappear from sight, with the development undertaken on the channels merging with its surrounding built form. Though in the above process, the covering of the channels to help minimise the creation of unhygienic conditions may be justified to an extent in some cases, but the development undertaken on it should give the channels a new identity and reinforce their existence.

Exploring new possibilities

Instead of the approach followed by the planning authorities which has made the drains disappear from sight as a result of covering and building on them in a piece-meal manner, a more practical, economical and sustainable approach, which takes advantage of the following natural or the inherent characteristics of the channels needs to be adopted.

Physical attributes of the channels

These attributes of the channel which are either inherent to their natural structure or come into being as a result of the city fabric around them, can be tapped for a number of purposes without making any huge investments of skills, labour or capital. For instance the channels can be developed as:

Transport corridors : Providing the city with an alternate system of land and water based transport facility along the channels. While the proposal for laying Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) corridors or using the channels as seasonal waterways would require a thorough examination, in terms of its physical and economic viability, the channels could simply be used as pedestrian priority zones with the provision of a cycle track.

Service corridors: Taking advantage of the network formed by the channels and the gradient occurring along their lengths, such corridors can be used as efficient distribution and collection systems, especially for gravity based services like water supply, drainage, sewerage etc. With this, not only would the problem of sewage and other waste material polluting the river be solved, but also the infrastructure laid could be used to service all kinds of development taken up along the channels, including upgradation of slums through the process of ‘slum networking’.

Green Belts: Instead of trying to impose activities which do not naturally form a part of the existing ecosystem, the channels could be cleaned and, with a minimal amount of landscaping, retained in their natural state as green belts which, besides functioning as lungs for the city, would provide habitat for the local fauna and flora of the region.

Resource Conservation Belts: This step calls for the creation of ground for conservation and recycling of natural resources through harvesting and treating waste water and sewage along with other waste material being discharged into the river via the channels. Here, besides augmenting the water supply through using the channels for continuous on-channel recharge of ground water by natural or artificial means, waste material like sewage, waste water, garbage etc. could be treated separately or recycled  biologically (Ecoparks), chemically or mechanically into useful by-products.

Urban Public Open Space: It is vital to have the provision of a series of public spaces forming a spatial link across the city which would, besides providing the ground for public activity and social interaction (such as Dilli Haat ), also break the existing barriers between the various neighbourhoods, in the process integrating the city fabric. Making this open space system into a continuous feature in the form of parkways whose edges could be defined by public buildings, wherever suitable, would not only transform these spaces into activity zones, but also ensure their maintenance and, discourage encroachments.

Evaluation of the approach

Taking the case of Delhi, it is felt that if the drainage channels here were developed as continuous green trails meandering through the city fabric and connecting up with other existing isolated parks or open spaces to form a complete network of their own, it would add tremendous amount of richness and variety to the experiential quality of the city. These trails could then be used to define a completely new fabric of  the city by using them as connectors which, by virtue of their linearity, scale and spread, could form dominant green linkages between monuments like Satpulla or Hauz Khas or other historically significant public buildings/ sites in order to revitalise them and, in the process, revive the older layers of the city’s history. Then, the channels could also be conceived and developed as extensions to the city’s natural features like the Ridge and the Yamuna river to get back a sense of the city’s natural landscape.

Components of proposed scheme

The proposal primarily involves developing a self sustaining, ecologically sensitive scheme for a specific drainage channel stretch, existing as a part of the Barapullah subsystem, next to the Press Enclave road. In order to rejuvenate the area and develop it as an example of environmentally sustainable development to be initiated on / around the drainage channels, the scheme includes within it, components like:

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