Indore to revive water bodies using smart solutions

INDORE, Madhya Pradesh: Indore Smart City to revive water bodies with the help of smart solutions such as involvement of Resident Welfare Associations (RWA) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) etc, aerial survey of water bodies for mapping their catchment channels and installing fountains to maintain dissolved oxygen in water bodies. There are around 455 wells, 25 stepwells and 29 lakes across Indore. Its water bodies rejuvenation project began with the cleaning and beautification of the Hari Rao Holkar Chhatri Stepwell under the heritage conservation efforts.

After the survey, to assess the conditions of these water bodies, an action plan was framed by Indore Smart City to rejuvenate its water bodies. The action plan includes exercises such as desilting, deepening and clearing the catchment channels. 

During the geo-tagging exercise, it was found that illegal establishments drained their wastewater in these water bodies leading to the accumulation of silt, resulting in reduced water storage capacity and non-potability of water. These illegal structures were removed with due consultation with all the stakeholders before the rejuvenation exercise.

Once the desilting, cleaning of water bodies, and the rainwater harvesting structures are connected to the city’s well through a recharge shaft, conservation of these water bodies will be handed over to local stakeholders such as RWA, NGOs and Garden teams. These local level stakeholders will be responsible for plantation near the water bodies, thus preventing soil erosion and increasing the water storage capacity.

To ensure the participation of the people, the Smart City launched IEC drives which include activities like weekend cleaning events. Apart from that, the revived wells or stepwells were also covered with green nets and connected to the nearby gardens, dividers and green belts, which would reduce the expenditure of the municipal corporation as they don’t have to build water tankers.