Letter to Hon'ble LG _new bridge planned over river Yamuna _ - 4.7 ...

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Natural meander in the river in 22 km of river in urban Delhi The creation of pseudo bridges on it results in ‘fixing’ and ‘freezing’ in time and space the current river meander within the guide bunds of the existing pseudo bridges and thus effectively ‘channelises’ the river. It may be noted that such ‘channelisation by default’ of a naturally meandering river could prove deleterious to the bridges themselves during the times of floods. Today in most parts of the world where such past channelisation had been carried out, it is being scoffed at and actively discouraged after their sad experiences of devastations from the floods made worse due to the channelisation of their naturally meandering rivers. It is a strange irony that while the state policy in the city as enshrined in the Master Plan (MPD 2021) has abandoned the concept of channelisation of the river after actively pursuing it in the 1990s, it continues to practice channelisation by default in form of the construction of pseudo bridges on the river. Is it too much to ask our planners to learn from the mistakes of others and to safeguard our flood plains while we still have them, rather lament later when all would have been lost? Avoidable, unnecessary and even risky impoundment of flood waters When bridges (pseudo) start to function as barrages, the obvious outcome is the impoundment of flood waters behind their raised approach roads cum cross embankments. In normal course this flood water should have after spreading over the flood plain, flowed down the stream in channels more than one (many of which become active in times of floods) during the times of floods. Such an artificial and avoidable impoundment of water plays havoc with the underlying aquifer system and over-saturates them in no time. Often such short and quick time over-saturation of aquifers (unless pumped out in quick time) could prove disastrous for nearby structures including residential buildings by submerging their foundations with standing water. The most unfortunate incident on 15 November 2010 in the Lalita
Park locality of East Delhi, where a 5 story building came tumbling down for reasons much more than poor construction quality and claimed 71 unsuspecting victims is a case in point. Temptation to encroach upon and build on ‘reclaimed’ (sic) flood plains It is no secret that the remaining flood plain of the river in urban Delhi is eyed by the developmental agencies of the state and non state interests alike, for reclamation and development (sic) in form of construction and concretisation. And such channelisation of the river through construction of pseudo bridges helps them in their eagerness to reclaim and build. Past experiences like the DMRC complexes at both Shastri Park and at Yamuna bank, the Akshardham, the Games Village for CWG 2010 and the DTC bus depot in the river bed are pointers in the matter. It may be noted that only if the existing bridges on the river had been ‘true’ bridges, none of the above state sponsored encroachments in the flood plain would even have been thought of in the active flood plain of the river. The NEERI report The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, NEERI at Nagpur, was commissioned a study in 1998 of the 22 km stretch of the river in Delhi by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). The purpose was to suggest a plan for the rejuvenation of the river. NEERI after a detailed study found and suggested the following: “The river has lost its carrying capacity to safely convey the highest floods expected in the city and hence the river bed’s natural topography must not be compromised in any manner”. The Yamuna Standing Committee (YSC) It is a sad fact that the Yamuna Standing Committee (YSC) which is an inter-state expert body in the Central Water Commission (CWC) and is charged with the responsibility for the river has often succumbed to the pressure tactics of different state governments and sometimes even compromised on its own set norms. The following words of the then Chairman of the YSC at its 68 th meeting is an indication enough of the tough task at hand of the YSC: “The Chairman expressed his concern about the tendency of various developmental agencies to encroach the flood plains of river Yamuna”. The YSC often goes by the advice received from the Pune based CWPRS (Central Water and Power Research Station), a central government agency, which assesses different developmental proposals from the point of view of upstream afflux that might result in times of floods from the construction of a structure. Now as is well known that afflux is just one of the many impacts of a structure standing in a river bed and hence it cannot and should not be treated as an enough and sufficient assessment for a fully informed decision making by the YSC. More over we feel that the YSC should also have expert ecologists and river experts on its decision making panel. We at YJA had been given an opportunity by the Yamuna Standing Committee (YSC) to present our view points at its 74 th meeting held on 15 th July 2008 and we hope that our pleadings for the river had its impact in that it (YSC) approved the proposal of PWD for the construction of a new road bridge across the river Yamuna at 1600 m upstream of existing HNZ road bridge subject to the condition that the approach road on left side of river Yamuna should be constructed on stilts (i.e, on piers) to allow flood water to flow freely.
Page 1 and 2: 4 July 2013 YJA/CORRES/7/13 Sri Tej
Page 3: Introduction WHY ‘PSEUDO’ BRIDG
Page 7 and 8: SPREAD OF WATER UPSTREAM OF WAZIRAB

Letter to Hon'ble LG _new bridge planned over river Yamuna _ - 4.7 ...

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