Conservation of waterbodies in urban Assam

The Assam cabinet’s approval of the Assam Urban Waterbodies (Preservation and Conservation) Bill, 2024, to be placed in the Assembly is a praiseworthy initiative that will fill the gap of a lack of legal provisions against the destruction of wetlands and waterbodies in urban areas of the state. Apart from maintaining the ecological balance, conservation of the waterbodies is crucial in urban flood management by holding stormwater. Mere legal provisions will not guarantee preservation of the waterbodies if urban areas are not provided with functional sewerage service. In Guwahati, in addition to sewerage provision for the entire city, preventing illegal hill cutting is a must to ensure the preservation of waterbodies, including the natural water channels feeding those. The bill seeks to notify all waterbodies within Master Plan areas, enabling authorities concerned to demarcate and protect them from encroachers. Other salient features of the bill include enabling the authorities concerned to chalk out plans of action and schemes for conservation of the waterbodies and uploading all information about the waterbodies to a portal for transparency. The provision of bringing all private waterbodies with an area of 2 acres or more and all community waterbodies, ponds, and tanks, including those belonging to religious institutions, irrespective of their size, under the ambit of the bill will cover the majority of the important waterbodies in urban areas. Wastewater from residential drains, commercial complexes, and marketplaces is carried by drains in urban areas, and due to a lack of sewage treatment facilities, polluted water finds its way into the natural channels of waterbodies and pollutes them. The increase in urban population has compounded the problem with the alarming rise in the outflow of polluted water into the waterbodies, which destroys their ecology. Along with sewage, the drains also carry silt to the waterbodies, and the deposition of silt makes the waterbodies shallow, reducing their capacity to hold storm water. Siltation in waterbodies in Guwahati has become acute due to the cutting of hills for the construction of houses and the rapid rise in encroachment. Due to the cutting up of trees and the loss of green cover, heavy monsoon rain washes away the topsoil and loose earth to the drains and finally to natural water channels and waterbodies. Desilting the drains and waterbodies involves recurring expenditures involving a huge amount of taxpayer’s money, which is not a sustainable solution as the number of cleared patches in the city hills has only increased with the surge in the number of unauthorised settlements. Ironically, even after more than 16 years since the enactment of the Guwahati Waterbodies (Preservation and Conservation) Act, 2008, the problem of siltation and encroachment of the major wetland—Deepor Beel, Silsako Beel, Sorusola Beel, Borsola Beel, and Bondajan—has only aggravated. Reducing the capacity of these wetlands and the River Bharalu and Bahini due to siltation resulting from illegal earth cutting in the Guwahati Hills and rampant hill-cutting in Meghalaya has led to the worsening of the waterlogging problem in several localities of the capital city. The expedited completion of the Guwahati Sewerage Project, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, is expected to play a crucial role in the conservation of the wetland in the city. In January, the state cabinet granted its approval to phase I of the project, which involves the construction of three sewage treatment plants and one faecal sludge and septage treatment plant and will cover 1.10 lakh households. Increasing economic activities and infrastructure development have triggered population increases in other towns and urban areas of the state. Unfortunately, most of these urban areas are grappling with waterlogging problems, pollution, and siltation threats to waterbodies within the towns or on their outskirts. No lessons from mistakes committed in Guwahati were drawn by the authorities in these urban areas, and planned growth with adequate solid and liquid waste management was not prioritised. The master plans of these towns were kept in cold storage, like the master plan for Guwahati, which led to unplanned growth. Traffic congestion, waterlogging, and air and water pollution problems in these towns have become worse and call for urgent remedial action. More emphasis needs to be placed on the accountability of elected representatives and government officials. Building awareness among residents about their role in keeping their towns clean and pollution-free through proper waste disposal and the importance of preserving and conserving waterbodies for protecting their ecology and retaining water holding capacity is equally important. The cooperation of residents is of paramount importance for the smooth implementation of master plans, various acts, and legal provisions that are aimed at conserving nature and ecology. The challenge of keeping cities and towns sustainable has grown bigger with increased extreme weather events due to climate change impacts. Mainstreaming conservation of the environment and ecology in the development planning process has become an urgent need of the hour to overcome this challenge. The proposed Act seeking to preserve and conserve the waterbodies in urban areas of the state is a step towards advancing such initiatives. Comprehensive stakeholder consultation will help fine-tune the necessary legal provisions.