How City Caravan helped sharpen my research in Nagpur

Pooja Sukhdeve writes about her experience of participating in the City Caravan, a course conducted by YUVA on co-creating inclusive cities with the youth, in the year 2018. With the learnings from the course, Pooja furthered her study to better understand factors behind the increasing pollution of Nagpur’s Nag river. She complemented her primary observations and data collection with case studies to better understand the reasons for increasing river pollution as well as suggest a more people-led approach for change.

Nagpur is fed by the Nag river, which gives the city its name. Originating from the Ambazari lake, the Nag river takes a winding path for approximately 16 km through the city before it joins another stream called Pili Nadi, which originates at another lake. This stream then merges into the Kanhan river on the outskirts of the city.

As I progressed in my research, I found that there were several causes for pollution and it could not be pinned down to just one. Because Nagpur has experienced fast urbanisation and migration to the city in the last five to six decades, there is increased use of water for domestic purposes and industrial production has increased, causing a sudden surge in sewage quantity. Discharge of untreated wastewater causes environmental degradation and many health issues such as respiratory illness, gastrointestinal issues, and different malignancies. The polluted Nag river threatens the health, safety, and well-being of nearby communities and places emotional and financial burdens on families, communities, and the nation as a whole. The Ambazari Lake which was the prime source of water to Nagpur city is filled with waste and sewage (which gives it an unnatural dark gray colour and a foul smell), and despite receiving rainwater during monsoon it is not fit for consumption.

A Corporation Colony resident, Smita Adbe, said the lack of communication and coordination between NIT and NMC is forcing residents to live in very unhygienic conditions. She pointed out that recently, mayor Anil Sole and municipal commissioner Shyam Wardhane claimed an imminent demolition of the illegal parking. ‘If the civic agencies fail to solve the problem soon, residents may approach the High Court’, warned Choukasey.

The real challenge that the MPCB and NMC face is the alarming rise in river contamination. After collecting data from the NMC and MPCB, I met with the people residing in the vicinity of the river, including people living in nearby informal settlements, as well as street vendors, and stakeholders. Ratanakar Meshram, a 67-year-old resident near the Ambazari lake for 16 years stated, ‘Ambazari garden is a good place for relaxation and exercise but during monsoon, the area gets flooded’. Although the government invested heavily in the project, the implementation was improper. Because of the poor state of the river and the terrible stench, human consumption had already come to a halt. Industrial waste pipelines go into the lake, as a result of improper waste management. On the residential front, both household garbage and toilet waste get dumped in the river, and no one gets penalised for the same. Apart from these, there are many stalls along the Nag river that dump waste into the river, which contaminates it with lethal chemicals and parasites. As a result, people face health issues because of the runoff of agricultural chemicals, sewage, and liquid waste from nearby hospitals and slaughterhouses during the monsoon. Additionally, many children living close to the bank of the waterway are observed to have respiratory infections.

It was observed that people dump untreated garbage in the river banks because of unsatisfactory waste management services from the NMC — the practice of door-to-door collection of waste is non-existent. Wastewater mixes with river water without undergoing treatment, thus having an impact on the river ecosystem, especially marine life.

Case 1 — Hiwari Nagar

In Hiwari Nagar (see Image 1), industries, schools and notified slums often dump untreated waste into the river. There seems to be a clear issue of lack of awareness in concordance with the inefficiency of NMC, since the slum-dwellers dump their garbage as a result of lack of door-to-door collection of waste.

Case 2 — Svatantra Nagar

Svatantra Nagar is another classic case, with similar geographical positioning as Hiwari Nagar. However, here the people use the river water for household chores such as bathing and washing utensils. Citizens are not fully aware about the implications of using this water on their health.

Case 3 — Bharatwada

The Bharatwada side is bound on all sides by farms and a village. The Nag river is used in farming and cultivation of local vegetables. However, in this settlement also garbage is dumped daily into the river because of the lack of door-to-door collection of waste by the Municipality.

Clearly, from all the three cases it can be observed that a lack of education on waste management and failure by the Municipality to collect garbage from households is a major factor towards increasing pollution in the river.

Despite a project in the pipeline to revive the Nag River, due to multiple inefficiencies as observed, the project has not come to fruition. It is clear from the study conducted, that the Nag river needs immense work and cleaning for restoration. The three case studies I conducted by the riverbank indicates a lack of awareness among the public and the inefficiencies of NMC in civic responsibilities. I am of the belief that if multidisciplinary staff including the staff of the agricultural department and irrigation department, and the staffs of nearby hospitals and factories, as well as the many small vendors near the river, come together to create an effective action plan aided by the government, the river restoration can be implemented in a timely and sustainable manner.

I feel immense gratitude towards the City Caravan, which encouraged me to develop skills like leadership quality, observational skills, problem-solving, open-mindedness, creativity, analysis, and quick decision making. Also, it played a vital role in furthering my research analysis capabilities to help me draw reasonable conclusions from a set of data, identify relevant details, to solve problems or make decisions, and analyse the site through city walks and surveys.

Pooja Sukhdeve, participant of City Caravan, batch of 2018; edited by Priya Ramakrishnan

The views expressed in the article are those of Pooja Sukhdeve.

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