The proposed ₹50 crore rainwater management project for Shela and Sanathal is more than a drainage intervention. It is a test of whether Ahmedabad’s expanding urban edge can manage intense rainfall without overwhelming the natural systems that once absorbed and carried away water. The Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority, or AUDA, plans to deepen Sanathal lake, connect it to the Kolat drain and use the lake to store rainwater from surrounding areas, according to a report by Nav Gujarat Samay.
The proposal follows waterlogging and flooding across Ahmedabad city and AUDA-administered areas during periods of heavy rain in July and August. The report says the flooding generated public anger in affected areas and prompted wider administrative attention, including a public meeting organised by Gandhinagar Lok Sabha MP and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. It also reports that municipal and AUDA officials were instructed to address the waterlogging problem.
The immediate event is therefore a project decision, but the underlying issue is the changing relationship between land development and stormwater. Shela, Sanathal and nearby areas have developed rapidly in recent years. AUDA sources cited in the report said this growth, combined with increasingly irregular weather, has placed growing pressure on natural drainage arrangements. The authority has consequently decided that stormwater should be planned at the level of the wider catchment rather than removed only from individual localities.
That distinction is important. A local drain can move water away from one road or neighbourhood, but it does not by itself resolve where the water should go during a major rainfall event. A catchment-based system considers the area from which water flows, the storage capacity available downstream and the links between drainage channels, lakes and low-lying land. In the proposed Shela-Sanathal plan, the lake is intended to become part of that wider system rather than remain an isolated water body.
The report says Sanathal lake will be deepened so that it can store a larger volume of rainwater and support groundwater recharge. The lake is also planned to be connected with the Kolat drain. Under the proposal, stormwater from Shela, Sanathal and surrounding areas would be channelled into the lake and retained as a water resource. The reported project cost is around ₹50 crore.
The proposal reflects two linked objectives: reducing waterlogging during heavy rain and increasing water retention after the rainfall event. The first objective concerns public safety, road access and the functioning of neighbourhoods during storms. The second concerns how urban areas retain water instead of treating rainfall only as a waste stream that must be rapidly discharged.
However, the supplied report does not establish the proposed lake’s storage capacity, the exact length or design of the drain connection, the land required for the works, or the implementation timetable. It also does not specify how the authority will prevent siltation, encroachment or solid waste from reducing the system’s effectiveness. These details will be significant because storage-based drainage depends not only on the creation of capacity but also on the continued maintenance of channels and water bodies.
AUDA is also considering a second project for the area between Kaneti and Telav. The report says seven lakes will be included in an interlinking project and deepened to increase water storage. This project is expected to cost another ₹50 crore. Together, the two proposals would require a total of around ₹100 crore in grant support from the central government, according to the report.
The funding reference places the proposals within a broader disaster-management framework. The report says the central government is providing grants under the National Disaster Management framework to help urban areas prevent waterlogging. It does not identify the precise grant programme, approval status, release schedule or conditions attached to the funding. At this stage, the reported figures should therefore be understood as proposed project costs and anticipated grant requirements, not as evidence that the entire amount has already been sanctioned or released.
The institutional arrangement also matters. Shela and Sanathal fall within areas administered by AUDA, while Ahmedabad’s municipal corporation manages civic services within its own jurisdiction. During a flooding event, water does not follow administrative boundaries. A drain, lake or natural channel in one jurisdiction can affect roads and neighbourhoods in another. The reported attention from both municipal and AUDA authorities suggests that waterlogging in the urban region has become an issue requiring coordination across agencies, even though the report does not provide a detailed joint operating framework.
The proposed lake and drain system could help address one of the central weaknesses of fast-growing urban areas: construction may proceed faster than the stormwater network is planned. As built-up surfaces expand, rainfall has fewer opportunities to infiltrate the ground. The report does not provide figures for the increase in built-up area or the extent of surface sealing in Shela and Sanathal, but it links rapid development to increasing pressure on natural drainage arrangements. This connection is the key urban planning question raised by the project.
A deeper lake alone cannot resolve every drainage failure. Its performance will depend on how water reaches it, whether upstream channels remain open, whether the drain connection is designed for peak flows and whether the lake retains capacity before the next major storm. The source material does not provide engineering estimates or performance benchmarks, so the project’s eventual flood-reduction effect cannot yet be assessed. What is clear from the reported plan is that AUDA is moving towards a network of storage and conveyance assets rather than relying only on roadside or neighbourhood-level drainage.
The seven-lake interlinking proposal extends this approach across a larger geography. Instead of treating each lake as a separate site, AUDA intends to connect them within a system serving the Kaneti-Telav corridor. The reported objective is to deepen the lakes and increase water storage. This could give the authority more than one location for managing stormwater, but the report does not explain the direction of flows, the operating rules between the lakes or how the system would function when several storage sites are full.
The project also has a groundwater dimension. The reported plan for Sanathal lake includes recharge, indicating that the authority sees the lake as both flood-management infrastructure and a water resource. That dual role will require the quality of incoming stormwater to be managed. The report does not discuss pollution, untreated sewage, debris or sediment, and it does not state whether water entering the lake will be screened or treated. Those operational questions remain outside the information supplied but will affect whether stored water can support the intended resource function.
AUDA’s other reported initiative concerns how residents interact with the authority. The agency has begun a tender process to introduce a comprehensive complaint and redressal system for its jurisdiction. Residents will reportedly be able to register complaints relating to roads, water, drainage and rainwater through a control room, interactive voice response system, web portal, mobile application, WhatsApp chatbot and SMS.
The proposed system responds to a governance problem that often becomes visible during flooding: residents may not know which authority is responsible for a road, drain, lake or waterlogging complaint. A digital complaint system can create a formal entry point, but its value will depend on whether complaints are assigned to the correct department, tracked to closure and used to identify recurring failures. The report provides details of the proposed channels but does not state the implementation date, response standards or public reporting mechanism.
AUDA is also reported to be developing a Field Track mobile application and web-based management portal for monitoring its projects. The proposed platform would bring project progress, site inspections, GPS-based attendance and administrative supervision onto one digital system. This is relevant to the drainage works because large infrastructure projects require oversight after approval as well as during construction. Yet the report does not say whether residents will be able to view project milestones, expenditure or inspection records through the platform.
Taken together, the three initiatives point to a broader administrative response: build more storage, connect water assets, create a formal complaint system and use digital tools to monitor implementation. The proposed ₹100 crore of work addresses physical infrastructure, while the complaint and monitoring systems address the information and accountability gaps that can delay a response. None of these components, however, substitutes for clear responsibility between agencies or for regular maintenance after construction.
The evidence currently confirms that AUDA has decided to pursue the Sanathal lake-Kolat drain project and is planning a separate seven-lake interlinking project, with a reported combined cost of around ₹100 crore. It also confirms that the plans followed serious waterlogging during the monsoon and that the authority has connected the problem to rapid urbanisation, irregular rainfall and pressure on natural drainage. The source does not establish final approvals, tender awards, construction dates, technical capacity or expected reductions in flood duration.
The next important developments will therefore be administrative and engineering milestones: the status of central grant approval, publication of project designs, tendering, the scope of the Kolat drain connection, the proposed operation of the interlinked lakes and the launch of AUDA’s complaint and project-monitoring systems. For Shela, Sanathal and the surrounding urban region, the central question is whether the proposed network can convert a reactive response to waterlogging into a maintained, catchment-scale system.
