Why Gomti River is dyeing?

A 960 K.M long and a massive part of Ganga basin, Gomti River was a perennial river. But now the flow has dropped to 1/3rd, BOD has reached close to 0 right after it reaches Lucknow. Gomti river is an example of how we treat our rivers, and it’s a testimony on decades of water system mismanagements in India.

The river faces 3 Major problems

• Close to 40 Natural drainages of River Gomti are now laden with city sewerage, Industrial discharge and solid waste, all falling into river.
• Khadar zone, natural drains, Gomti's catchment areas, over and underground channels are tempered with or encroached for urban sprawl.
• The river rises 10-12 meters in monsoon, so to protect habitation embankments were built in 1970s, altering river's natural character and its relationship with channels and drainages.

A tremendous amount of money and effort was spent after civil society started raising the issue at various platforms. A mega STP to tie all the drains together and treat failed, big river-bed dredging projects launched but nothing happened. Unconfirmed news suggests thousands of crore rupees already spent with no impact.

Now after all these failures, U.P. Government has started the cosmetic makeover of river in the name of a very expensive river front development. Instead of fixing any of the above 3 issues all its focusing is, somehow build a 100-150-meter-wide channel bound by 17-meter-deep walls running more than 13 km on both sides. And use the precious river land for multi-function and commercial activities. There was a study done by IITR in 2012 which warned about the consequences of jacketing the river within 250 Meters, but major construction activities are happening binding it under even shorter width. Experts and civil society members are pleading and trying to make any sense of this heavy, expensive and disastrous pomp and show happening at the cost of taxpayer's money, on a fragile ecosystem.

The Videos presented on this page are to provide a brief overview on the problem. For more detailed research, track and contribute to this project as the group works on it please visit Research Action Group Analysis on Gomti River Restoration and River Front Development Project (Lucknow)