Gujarat govt mulls legislation to conserve urban waterbodies, green spaces

Time of India

3 days ago

Gandhinagar: With major cities and towns being plagued by rampant encroachments on waterbodies and green spaces, Gujarat govt is considering enacting legislation to protect and conserve urban waterbodies and green spaces.
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The state urban development department has begun an exercise to draft the proposed legislation and is studying provisions of a similar act enacted by Assam, which will be replicated in the proposed legislation with new provisions.
Top sources in the state govt said that a high-level committee formed by the urban development department has proposed new regulatory measures to conserve waterbodies and green spaces through the Urban Water Bodies and Green Spaces Protection and Conservation Act, which is in force in Assam.
"The state govt is also proposing to introduce Water Bodies and Green Spaces Protection and Management Rules along the lines of the solid waste management (SWM) rules that were implemented by the Union govt," the officials said.
Sources said that currently, India has an advisory on the conservation and restoration of water bodies, but in the absence of rules, urban bodies are not empowered to effectively implement the advisory.
"The rules will provide the much-needed empowerment to the proposed urban water system cell that the govt aims to set up for conserving and protecting water bodies and green spaces," an official said.
The proposed legislation is expected to be backed by an 'Urban Blue-Green Infrastructure' policy, which the UDD is currently preparing.
"The proposed policy will underline the importance of blue-green infrastructure, ways of preserving it and will have key performance indicators to measure the progress of attempts to protect it.
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The policy will also list global good practices and lessons for India," said UDD officials.
"Regional plans would play a pivotal role in the conservation of water bodies and green spaces. Natural features like waterbody catchments or basins generally extend beyond urban boundaries. As of date, except for a few cities and regions, regional plans have not been formulated in the country," said an official, adding that the preparation of regional plans is central to the state's overall urban development plan.
Ahmedabad has 156 lakes, with most of them located in the Sarkhej and Ramol-Hathijan areas. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is currently undertaking a project to revive 143 lakes, aiming to enhance water conservation, create public spaces and utilize them as stormwater sinks to prevent urban flooding. The civic body is in the process of taking possession of these waterbodies, with 103 approved and 25 already secured, supported by a significant increase in the lake development budget.
However, this initiative is complicated by a major challenge — the district collector's office acknowledged that approximately 10 lakes in the city already have govt buildings built on them. These include police posts, warehouses, govt quarters and structures for telecom companies, allocated in the past due to land classification practices.
Administrative and legal complications arising from these permanent structures have directly hindered AMC's attempts to gain possession of the lakes.
The situation is further complicated by issues like encroachments and even AMC's own past construction of commercial shops on lake land.
The recently released report of the high-level committee on urban planning by the UDD underlined the importance of saving the urban waterbodies as a buffer against urban flooding. In a city like Ahmedabad, previous reports indicate that the number of lakes was reduced from 204 in 1960 to 143 in 2025, even as the area of the city increased five times from 79 sq km to 480 sq km.
The recommendations include the inclusion of conservation in the Gujarat Town Planning & Urban Development (GTPUD) Act 1976, about blue-green infrastructure, inclusion in comprehensive general development control regulations (CGDCR), urban blue-green infrastructure policy and additional regulatory mechanisms.