The former Municipal commissioner of Baroda City Mr. Vinod Rao had initiated a citizen’s cell which comprised of a few intellectuals from varied walks of life. On behalf of IIID-Vadodara chapter few (architect members) of us too were part of this cell. The thought behind this cell was to get IDEAS from Barodians for the development of the city.
Urban Wetlands or Water-bodies are very fragile ecosystems itself and how to address such projects is a issue in any urban city of India today. IIID-Vadodara chapter took this challenging issue as one of the development aspects for the city of Baroda and we worked our a proposal suggesting ECOLOGICAL APPRAISAL this pond with least amount of civil work involved and actually trying to address the core issue i.e. HEALTH OF WATERBODY. A ecologically sustainable design was introduced and worked out.
Vadodara Municipal Corporation had already taken up redevelopment of few urban ponds of the city and the nature of development for these ponds was ideally a BEAUTIFICATION process i.e. maximum civil work around the pond consisting of pathways, stone pitching, M.S railing, benches and lamp posts, humongous gates with fountains (which never work after the inauguration) etc etc . Hence just adding a new concrete jungle to the already existing concrete jungle around, with the core issue of health of water being absolutely neglected. So we as citizens end up have a walk around a lake / pond with the water stinking (a dead water body). Keeping such concerns in mind we proposed the present design, a prototype based on which other lake developments can happen.
The proposed site was an existing pond in Manjalpur and it dried up due a new proposed road. Few years latter it was used as a garbage dump yard by the municipal Corporation. A small and concise size of pond which had an existing municipal garden attached to it. After studying the site and the immediate catchment areas, we identified 2 points on the outside adjacent road from where storm water and run-off could be tapped and fed in the pond. The storm water is carried into a collection tank through sieve to filter off the plastic waste and debries. This collection tank allows heavy waste materials to settle down and only rain water flows through another sieve and into the pond. Cleaning of this percolation tank latter also becomes a easy task for the authorities.
The pond was created with a careful soil grading and slope analysis method to achieve a 30% slope i.e. angle of repose of soil. This soil grading and dressing created Earthen Retaining Walls which could easily hold on to the water pressure. Further stabilization of these slopes was done with use of grasses, shrubs and ground cover species. Trees on the upper and middle edges of the slope too added to the stabilization of soil but over a period of time. Fast growing grass species like chrysopogon zizaniodes (khus grass) , and pennisetum purpureum ( gajraj) and cynadon species were profusely used for quick results.
A large part of this garden is also dedicated to creating of a mini Urban Forest. More than 50 different varieties of TREES are introduced at a distance of 8 to 10 ft. centre-to-centre. Use of Native Trees species was the priority with adding of few Flowering trees.
This project was earlier designed and conceptualized by the Municipal Corporation with a approved budget of 3 crores which was revised to almost 4.5 crores. The present design as conceived by IID-Vadodara chapter and executed by Vadodara Municipal Corporation has costed them a total of 34 lakhs only. Hence we at IIID – Vadodar call it – A MODEL LAKE / POND DEVELOPMENT project which showed the authorities that in a developing nation like India huge and fancy budgets catering to only civil work in the name of landscape development needs to the RE-THOUGHT.