Save Musi MovementA concrete jacket
They want to pave the riverbed and banks with 70 metres of concrete. The sand, rocks, and silt would be gone. The river could never move or breathe again.
What is the government planning to do?
The government calls it 'riverfront beautification.' But the plan traps the Musi in a concrete box and builds roads and real estate on top. This is what that means.
What?
Digging it deeper
They plan to dig out the natural bed into a deep, flat channel and erase the river's islands and bends.
Blocks that lock the river in place
Massive foundation blocks, called toe walls, anchor the concrete slopes deep into the ground. Rivers move and change course over time. These walls make sure the Musi never can again.
A 200-metre land grab
The 'riverfront' is 200 m wide, but the water is squeezed to just 108 m. The rest becomes 30-metre roads and real estate on both banks.
Walkways on two levels
The plan carves two walkways into the concrete walls. The lower one sits just above the water, down inside the concrete tub. The upper one runs along the top, beside the new 30-metre roads.
A utility corridor under the park
Under the 'linear park' and the new roads runs a network of trunk sewers, the big pipes that carry a city's waste. For 21 km, the riverfront doubles as an industrial utility corridor with a garden on the lid.
Borrowed water, just for show
They plan to pump in Godavari water so the channel looks full all year. It is the same trick that failed in Sabarmati.
“A riverfront is a real-estate project, not a water project.”