How a city killed a river: lessons from Delhi's Sahibi river for Pune's urban planners

Indian Express

22-06-2025

For centuries, a seasonal river emerged from the Aravalli hills and followed its course to meander into the waters of the Yamuna – until human interventions created a conflict between it and urban planning. 'Sahibi river is a case study on how a river goes extinct in a city,' says Dr Rajendra Ravi, a Delhi-based urban social planner.
When Parisar, a Pune-based organisation working on sustainable development, undertook a project to reimagine Delhi, one of the world's most polluted cities with one of the most threatened rivers, as a space for sustainability, justice, and community, mapping the disappearing Sahibi became an integral point. Ravi is the coordinator of the project.
'Our study of the Sahibi river in Delhi, which is a tributary of the Yamuna, reveals a recurring pattern of urban river mismanagement across the country. Rivers, like the Sahibi in Delhi, or the Mula and the Mutha in Pune are dammed upstream to provide water to the ever-growing cities,' says Ranjit Gadgil, Programme Director, Parisar.
'The water that flows in the rivers after damming is mostly sewage and industrial effluent, affecting the downstream communities. Constricting the Sahibi contributes to the severe flooding in Gurugram every year. Creating riverfronts does not address the pollution in the rivers and, in fact, can worsen flooding. We can expect the same in Pune,' he adds.
From water to sewage
According to Parisar, a course that flowed into the Yamuna was called Sabi 'Naala1807' in a 1807 map of Delhi. The Sahibi was also mentioned in the Vedic period as the Drishadvati river. 'For agrarian communities, waterbodies like rivers, canals and ponds are of great importance. There was great community involvement because waterbodies are their lifeline,' says Ravi.
Once villages make way for cities, the living relationship between the people and the land, the river and other natural resources ends. 'The small tributaries and irrigation systems disappear with urbanisation. Governments rarely have a long-term plan that is aligned with the ecology, such as how will water enter a city, where will it go and how will it be cleaned before meeting the sea?' says Ravi.
The Sahibi would flood during the rainy season, and urban planners created bunds and other ways to check the flow. In 1977, large parts of Delhi were flooded, and the government constructed the Masani barrage on the Delhi-Jaipur highway near Masani village in Rewari. Several other dams were constructed in Rajasthan to hold rainwater. The result was that flow in the Sahibi downstream from the Masani barrage stopped.
'The structure of the Sahibi, however, remained on the land. In place of clean water, we have waste water and sewage from colonies and industries flowing along the course of the Sahibi into the Najafgarh jheel through which the Sahibi used to enter the Yamuna,' says Ravi. 'Though you will find Sahibi on the map, the river does not exist,' he adds.
Ravi adds that urban planners must find ways to dispose of sewage, else these will continue to threaten the survival of rivers. 'So far, we have gathered different data sets on the river and its extinction. We are compiling a timeline of court and NGT orders that have called for the rejuvenation and recognition of the Sahibi as a river. The Delhi lieutenant governor's office has allocated a budget and has promised a complete rejuvenation of the Sahibi soon. This, however, is yet to be verified by our fieldwork. Subsequently, we plan to refine our data and publish a booklet with a brief on the river, a timeline of court orders, budgetary allocation and efforts by the L-G. All this will be supplemented with visuals from the field site as the visual ethnography of a dead river,' says Ravi.
Dipanita Nath is interested in the climate crisis and sustainability. She has written extensively on social trends, heritage, theatre and startups. She has worked with major news organizations such as Hindustan Times, The Times of India and Mint. ... Read More