The Musi’s clean-up: On Hyderabad’s river plan

Soon after winning the 2023 Assembly elections and becoming the first Congress Chief Minister of Telangana, A. Revanth Reddy proposed an ambitious plan to redevelop Hyderabad’s Musi riverfront, with high rises, promenades, shopping complexes, and multiple bridges, in an attempt to replicate London’s Thames riverfront. But much like Chennai’s Cooum, Kolkata’s Hooghly and Delhi’s Yamuna, the Musi meanders through what was once the heart of Hyderabad; the ugly centre of an urban sprawl. Like most rivers in India’s urban agglomerations, and indeed globally, the Musi has for long been the city’s cesspool, carrying about 2,000 million litres of sewage a day, over 60% of which is untreated. There is also a large volume of industrial effluents flowing into the Musi, mainly from the city’s bustling generic drug industry, making the river toxic. Yet, about one lakh people live along the riverbanks, some of them on parts of a dry riverbed and others on the flood plains, called the buffer zone that stretches about 50 metres on either side of the river. They have lived there for generations. And many more downstream depend on the river for farming.

Therefore, it was unsurprising that Mr. Reddy would face stiff resistance from the evictees when the government began demolishing 15,000-odd structures, mostly houses, on October 1, along what is colloquially called the Old City — the part of Hyderabad where the iconic Charminar is located. This area is home to many of the city’s blue-collar workforce — ragpickers, and conservancy and construction workers, several of whom have long held land titles, power connections and have even been paying taxes. The government had proposed a rehabilitation plan of high-rises for the evictees, but these were in far flung places, affecting livelihoods. This is not a new phenomenon in India. This was seen in Chennai following the tsunami in 2004, when the government sought to rehabilitate several fishermen communities who have lived for generations along the coast. But even before this, there have been attempts to evict those living along the Adyar river that runs through Chennai. However, the problem with such beautification plans, including the Musi’s, is that they are executed without consulting those who would be most affected. While Mr. Reddy’s government says it was done, the evictees disagree. Moreover, the ‘revitalisation plan’, as the government likes to call it, is a cosmetic change — the eyesore disappears in the hope that it is replaced with a romanticised riverfront bustling with commercial activity. But it has not addressed the elephant in the room: permanently fixing the Musi’s sources of pollution from chemical effluents and untreated sewage.