Why we are against the government's plan

Concrete soaks up heat all day and lets it out at night, so nights by the river never cool down. Homes along the Musi could stay 3 to 5°C hotter than greener parts of the city. The 21 km of walls and roads makes a canyon that blocks the breeze that used to follow the water. Shade trees and an open bank would cool the same homes for free.

A concrete bed does more than stop rain from soaking in. Dig the channel deeper and it works like a drain, pulling water out of the soil in the streets beside it. Families in Puranapul and Chaderghat would find their borewells dry even in the monsoon. Leave the bed as sand and the river keeps refilling those wells for nothing.

A natural bed of sand, rocks and bends creates friction, and that friction brakes the water. Smooth concrete takes the brake away, and extra depth cannot replace the width the river loses. Past kilometre 21 the flood lands on farmers downstream with double the force and half the warning. An open floodplain is the flood control that actually works.

Sabarmati's water is held in place by barrages, small dams that turned a flowing river into a standing tank. Just downstream of the pretty stretch the pollution readings spike, because the sewage is dumped further down the line. Hyderabad makes about 1,800 MLD, million litres a day, of sewage. Treat that at the source and the Musi starts to clean itself.

International consultants drew these plans in closed rooms, with no public hearing in the bastis. About 90% of a riverfront budget goes on the front: roads, plazas and promenades. Only about 10% goes on treating the sewage, and the project report was never published in Telugu or Urdu. Publish it in our languages and hold real hearings where people live.

Under a natural bed lies the hyporheic zone, a layer of sand and gravel where tiny life cleans the water. Native reeds like Typha and Phragmites line the bank and pull heavy metals and nitrates out of the river. The plan swaps both for concrete and ornamental lawns that need fertiliser, and that fertiliser leaks back into the water. Bring back the sand and the reeds and the Musi cleans itself again.