Vadodara Floods Are A Man-made Disaster

A decade ago, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to fight his first Lok Sabha election from Vadodara, in one of his speeches he said that river Vishwamitri had called him. He even spoke about making the river clean.

As PM Modi moved from Gujarat to represent Varanasi in the Parliament and become the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers in Gujarat changed, but the fate of river Vishwamitri did not.

Encroachments on the ravines of the river, constructions on it, sewage and silting have reduced the river to a poor nallah, which overflows during heavy rains.

This monsoon was no exception. Even as the country celebrated Lord Krishna’s birthday on Janmashtami, the city was flooded. The authorities released water from Ajwa, one of the two main sources of drinking water for Vadodara, into Vishwamitri.

While it remains debatable when and at what level the water should have been released, the fact remains that it is a man-made disaster that has led to loss running into crores of rupees.

As the water receded after three to four days, at least eight dead bodies were found. Animals were also killed in the Sayaji Baug Zoo and trees, several of them over 100-year-old, were uprooted.

“It is a man-made disaster”, environmental activist Rohit Prajapati, and Gujarat Congress spokesperson Narendra Ravat, asserted.

They said that, “buildings have come up, without any respect for the law.” According to Prajapati, even the tree museum and building of the Vadodara Urban Development Authority are on the ravines of the river.

This apart, three major courses for the storm water flowing from the city have been majorly encroached upon over the years. For three decades, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation has been ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party,, and the strength of Congress corporators is decreasing in each election.

In the city envisaged by the former ruler of Vadodara Sir Sayajirao Gaekwad III, urban planning has gone for a toss. He had planned things in such a manner that from Pratappura the water would come in Ajwa and from there in Vishwamitri.

The ponds of the city were interlinked, and the water would easily flow out of the city and meet the ocean. The constructions were extraordinary as well.

Even when Vadodara, having a population of over 31 lakh, was flooded, there was no water in the majority of the buildings, including the Laxmi Vilas Palace, Kothi office and the M. S. University of Baroda, built during the times of the erstwhile ruler.

In stark contrast, this time around, newer areas and even the western part of the city was inundated with flood waters. The water did not recede for two days even after the rain stopped.

Prajapati pointed out that, in several areas, the height of the roads has increased from one foot to seven to eight feet. “Where will the water go?”, he asked, adding it will make its way in homes and housing societies. “When the road dividers need to be designed in a manner that the water can make its way”, he said.

Minister of state for home Harsh Sanghavi grabbed the headlines when he announced that chief minister Bhupendra Patel has in principle approved Rs 1200 crore for Vishwamitri Revival and Redevelopment Project. However, there was no mention about how they are going to go about it.

What Sanghavi announced might be news for those residing out of Vadodara or for that matter Gujarat, but people here in the past had heard about several big plans about river Vishwamitri. Till date everything has remained on paper.

Says art photographer and activist Pulkit Dave from Vadodara, “A lot has been said about Vishwamitri, but nothing has been done.” He even points out that there was nothing for the rejuvenation of the river in the Rs 2350 crore grant released by the Central Government in 2017 for Vadodara Smart City Project.

For Vishwamitri, names of projects have changed, but things have remained on paper and the city has continued to cope with such situations. One such flood was in 2019.

Call it the Vishwamitri Rejuvenation Plan or Vishwamitri Redevelopment Plan, none have taken off as environmental activists have opposed the way the project was perceived. At one point of time, there was also a proposal to make a riverfront on either side of the river, much before Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad became a reality.

About 17.5-kilometer river passes through Vadodara whereas the total length of the river that originates from Pavagadh, near Vadodara and merges with the Gulf of Cambay is 180 kilometres.

In between whenever the elected wing felt like, it lowered the JCB machines in the river and started digging. This is not the way, and it affects the biodiversity, Ravat asserts.

Opposition leader in the state assembly Amit Chavda has demanded an inquiry by a sitting judge into the disaster. The few days for the Barodians were such that there were hardly any leaders on the ground for their help.

There are stories of top representatives of the ruling party in the VMC sitting in the air-conditioned Civic Command Centre to monitor the flood situation. This led to widespread anger and as politicians started visiting affected areas after the waters receded, they faced wrath of the people. Sanghavi was also not spared.

Also, what irked the masses was the way two ministers from the state government along with Vadodara BJP chief Dr. Vijay Shah sat on a VMC dumper and made rounds of the affected areas. At regular intervals there was a smile on their faces.

Environmental planner Neha Sarwate says that policy, legislation, administration, and the planning must be in sync to address the issue.

Balkrishna Shukla , Chief whip of the BJP in the state Assembly could not be reached for comments. However, he was on record in the section of the media that the Chief Minister has instructed that the project proposal should be created in coordination with the department concerned and immediately. During his tenure as the Mayor of the city, Shukla was one of the persons who had conceptualised one of the projects.