The place have Gurugram’s Sahibi river and Aravalli hills and jungles gone?

Many years earlier than Delhiites jammed NH-48 and Mehrauli-Gurgaon Street to flock to Gurugram for his or her workplaces or nightlife, events, and booze, the cluster of ‘grams’ southwest of the capital, set on the Aravalli slopes with forests scattered round, was dwelling to ashrams, farmlands, ponds, and seasonal streams flowing down from the world’s oldest mountain vary. Within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, famed yoga guru Dhirendra Brahmachari and even Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar selected Gurgaon as a quiet nook for peace. However all that was earlier than the century turned. It was earlier than the brand new millennium rolled in, and the country retreats gave approach to a booming, ever-swelling city sprawl, which is now stuffed with civic mess that makes the moniker “Millennium Metropolis” really feel like a query mark. It’s laborious to think about {that a} river and plenty of seasonal streams as soon as flowed by Gurgaon.

Now, Gurugram, contributing almost 65% of Haryana’s earnings tax collections and internet hosting tech giants similar to Google, Microsoft, and various Fortune 500 firms, typically finds its streets waist-deep in water, thoroughfares become canals, roads drowned, manholes left gaping, reside wires hanging dangerously, automobiles adrift, and commuters trapped in gridlocks that may stretch from 4 to eight hours.

If the transformation of Gurgawan — from its ashram days of Aravallis, rivers, and streams — right into a glass, metal, and concrete sprawl was a pointy flip, the scene at present is of a fair sharper twist. Residents, having spent crores on residences and lakhs in taxes, step out of gated high-rises solely to wade by knee-deep water on the town’s pried Golf Course Street, whether or not the rain is 50 mm or 150 mm.

So the place did Gurugram’s rivers, Aravalli hills, and jungles vanish? What turned of the Sahibi River?

The forests have been felled and flattened, rivers and wetlands encroached upon, their areas claimed for the post-liberalisation growth. Companies thrived, Gurugram prospered. However this “growth” got here at a hefty value. The civic chaos the town faces at present is a direct end result of the gradual dismantling of its pure setting, as soon as outlined by the Aravallis, their inexperienced cowl, various lakes and bundhs and the Sahibi River.

WHO KILLED GURUGRAM’S WATER LIFELINE, SAHIBI RIVER?

The Sahibi River, as soon as a seasonal lifeline flowing from the Aravallis in northern Rajasthan’s Sikar, handed by Haryana into Delhi. It nonetheless flows, however now it has been diminished to what’s referred to as the Najafgarh drain in Delhi.

As soon as, the Sahibi River was an integral a part of Gurgaon’s hydrology. Alongside its course as soon as lay wetlands, ponds, and riparian ecosystems, such because the Basai Wetland, Masani Barrage, and a series of village ponds that sustained farming within the area. Fragments of which nonetheless survive, although enormously depleted.

At present, the 2 stretches of the Sahibi inside Haryana, operating alongside Gurugram’s northwestern boundary, are described as “ecologically useless”.

It’s polluted, encroached upon in locations, and is lower off from its pure water sources. The Masani Barrage (in Rewari district) has been largely dry for the reason that late Nineteen Eighties, due to declining rainfall, upstream diversions, and unchecked building alongside the Sahibi River’s course.

Nevertheless, the destruction extends past the principle river.

In Basai village, Gurugram district, 5 of its six ponds have been paved over in simply 12 years. They disappeared by 2019, famous a Hindustan Instances report from that 12 months.

The ponds had been buried beneath residential sectors, a college, or poisoned by industrial effluent.

With out these water our bodies, Gurugram’s pure drainage and groundwater recharge programs have been beneath immense pressure. Concretisation of surfaces and stormwater drains in Gurugram has worsened the scenario within the wet season, when extra water that ought to have been collected in these waterbodies is now left trapped on roads and open areas within the concrete jungle.

Is not anybody chargeable for the mess that Gurugram has develop into?

In response to a starred query from Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda on the civic woes of Gurugram, Minister of Housing and City Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar stated that whereas city planning is the perform of city native our bodies (ULBs) or city growth authorities, the Centre dietary supplements the efforts of the states by monetary and technical assist.

Final week, Khattar, in a solution within the Parliament, stated that the distinctive topography, that includes the Aravalli hills to the east and the Najafgarh drain to the northwest, was the rationale for situations of waterlogging in Gurugram.

“The elevation distinction of about 78 metres between the Najafgarh drain and the Aravalli hills has created a pure gradient for water circulation, which was traditionally managed by a collection of bunds constructed within the late nineteenth century, similar to Chakarpur, Jharsa, Wazirabad, and Ghata bunds. Nevertheless, fast urbanisation has rendered most of the bunds out of date and diminished pond networks, impacting the standard drainage system,” Khattar stated in response to Hooda’s query.

The surplus water, which as soon as flowed northwest alongside Gurugram’s pure gradient to achieve the Sahibi, now not makes it there. Because of this, the river (which is now basically a drain) is not recharged, and the water finally ends up stagnating on the concrete streets, with little earth left to allow seepage.

TERI’s 2018 Gurgaon Flooding Report and NIUA hydrological mapping conclude that Gurgugram’s city drainage plan ignored pure circulation patterns. That is why even gentle rain turns the deliberate sectors into waterlogged pockets.

If the Sahibi River has died a gradual demise, the Aravalli hills to the east and north, and the inexperienced cowl over it, have been dealt a quicker blow.

ARAVALLIS, ONCE A NATURAL SHIELD OF GURUGRAM, IS NOW UNDER SIEGE

Just like the waterbodies, the traditional vary of the Aravallis, the oldest on the planet, as soon as shielded Gurugram from desertification, filtered its air, and housed leopards, hyenas, and native tropical dry deciduous thorny forests.

Regardless of a Supreme Court docket ban on mining in components of the Aravallis in Gurugram, Nuh, and Faridabad since 2009, unlawful extraction of stone and sand stays rampant. A number of environmentalists and residents’ strain teams have urged the federal government to designate the Aravallis a no-go zone with strict enforcement and restoration of degraded websites, however state compliance has been patchy.

In Gurugram’s Sonha, unlawful stone quarries have flattened hillocks, inflicting everlasting harm to the Aravalli vary, as documented in a 2019 Down To Earth investigation report.

In 2020, a complete Aravalli hillock was reportedly flattened to construct an method highway for farmhouses being constructed in Bandhwari, round 1.5km off the Gurugram-Faridabad freeway. It was the second reported disappearance of a hill in that part of the vary since 2018, when the Supreme Court docket learnt that one-fourth of the Aravalli hills in neighbouring Rajasthan had vanished.

In June, a 33-foot-wide unlawful concrete highway was laid in Basai Meo (in adjoining Mewat district), to help mining inside a protected zone, The Instances of India reported.

Of the 582 recorded circumstances of unlawful mining in Aravallis, there was only one conviction, reported the Enterprise Customary in 2023. A number of NGT and Supreme Court docket orders have demanded on-line grievance programs, CCTV monitoring, and district-level motion plans to safeguard what stays of the Aravallis, however enforcement stays weak.

The ecological price has been extreme. Deforestation has invited mud storms from the Thar, accelerated desertification, depleted groundwater, and raised the NCR’s already harmful air air pollution ranges.

GURUGRAM REVENUE WINDFALL, DEVELOPMENT SHORTFALL

As soon as a semi-arid agricultural space, Gurugram has morphed into considered one of India’s wealthiest city centres. It hosts the Indian workplaces of a number of of the Fortune 500 firms, tech big Microsoft, and serves as headquarters for giants like Coca-Cola, BMW, Hyundai, and Cargill. Gurugram additionally boasts India’s third-highest per-capita earnings and provides the best tax cash to the Haryana authorities’s kitty.

Regardless of the wealth, residents face infrastructure that businessman-columnist Suhel Seth condemned as “slum-like”.

“It is weird. The richest individuals reside in slum-like environments,” Seth stated.

In July, former Jet Airways CEO Sanjiv Kapoor referred to as out Gurugram’s civic authorities over poor waste administration, sharing images that exposed the grim actuality of Sector 44’s streets.

Gurugram has turned out to be a metropolis of governance failure, masked by skyscraper gloss.

Civil Servant and IRTS officer, J Sanjay Kumar, stated that changing concrete with inexperienced cowl, defending wetlands, and permitting water to seep into the bottom is the important thing to stopping city flooding, one thing Noida has achieved higher than Gurgaon.

“Take away the concrete jungle, let water percolate. Plant timber to soak up extra water. Defend wetlands which retailer water. Solely answer to stop city flooding. That is the rationale Noida has higher situations than Gurgaon. Noida has not less than higher inexperienced cowl than Gurgaon,” Kumar posted on X final week.

Till constructive and corrective measures are taken, issues are to stay as they’ve been for a decade now.

In the meantime, the Municipal Company of Gurugram (MCG) rolled out an AI-driven property tax restoration mechanism, pulling in Rs 200 crore thus far, together with Rs 95 crore in July alone, in accordance with a report in The Instances of India. However because the considerations naturally observe, many argue this windfall should flip into actual growth, not one more case of wasted potential.

Gurgawan’s journey from a quiet suburb beneath the shade of the Aravalli to a worldwide company hub got here at a steep value. The associated fee has been the erasure of its personal rivers, wetlands, and hills. The city floods, warmth islands, and dust-laden air aren’t random crises. They’re the echoes of large-scale environmental dismantling. There’s nonetheless an opportunity to repair what’s been broken. However daring steps have to be taken now, earlier than these adjustments develop into irreversible.

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