we all know that the History has countless evidence of civilization growing by the waterfronts and
Rivers like Indus, Nile, Tigris, etc., are known for the human settlements that developed there. But
unfortunately, The river fronts today are degrading due to uncalled interventions and human
ignorance towards their ecology.
The government bodies and ministry of urban development of the state of Rajasthan have identified
several such water bodies in the state for rejuvenation and redevelopment projects
The Darvyawati river is one of the rivers that has recently been considered under such projects. This
river is subjected to the adverse impact of population rise.
Slide change
The Dravayawati River in Jaipur in its role of natural drainage was the lifeline of the city in the
historic times. The maharajas of Jaipur in their time had put in great efforts to bring water to the
Jaipur city, from breaking the Harmada hills to building the Athunia dam, but the unforeseen disaster
of July 1981 destroyed everything and since then the degradation of the river Dravayawati has been
marked. The rising population, rapid industrialization, irregular seasonal rainfall all were having their
own impacts on the Dravayawati River to which the devastation by the floods added to.
Slide change (survey Analysis)
During the period of 11thOctober 2021 - 16th October 2021, a survey was conducted, to get an
overview of how much the people of Jaipur are aware about the history of this auspicious river and
what are their suggestions on this rejuvenation project. The results of the survey were quite shocking
and unexpected
Slide change
Slide change
77 percent of the respondents say that there is a shortage of water supply in Jaipur while the rest were
not sure if Jaipur faced any water shortages.
Slide change (Discussion and Result)
After reading many literatures, newspaper articles and case studies we came to know that the major
objectives of this river rejuvenation project were to recharge the groundwater and to bring back the
lifeline river of Jaipur back to its track are not fully achieved. Lack of teamwork, political issues, lack
in view of broad plan to complete the project led to the project’s failure. Though the project seemed
to be a successful one in its initial phase but due to inert party politics, the project saw its doom.
Former chief engineer of ground water department SM Kanwar conducted a survey which revealed
that at many locations the water table was depleting instead of witnessing a rise.
Slide change
The main reasons for the depleting ground water were the concretisation of the river bottom, though
as can be seen from the picture in background some areas have been left natural for ground water to
recharge but the man-made nature of this river forced them to concretize the river base, making it a
major issue in the failure of this project. Second the farmers have excessively withdrawal the ground
water from that area, brig down the ground water table, thirdly 104 check dams of 1 meter height
were constructed on the riverbed for artificial groundwater recharge, but they too failed due to
incompletion of the project as the water passes are blocked.