The Kanh river is a river flowing through Indore, the commercial capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.[1] The river does not carry freshwater, and turned into sewage during the early 90s. Efforts are being made to restore the river.
Kahn River | |
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![]() The polluted Kahn river in Indore, 2009. | |
Location | |
Country | India |
State | Madhya Pradesh |
Cities | Indore, Sanwer, Ujjain |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | |
• location | Indore, India |
Mouth | |
• location | Ujjain, India |
Length | 21 km (13 mi) |
Basin features | |
Tributaries | |
• left | Saraswati River (MP) |
The river, along with the Saraswati River, is a part of the Smart City Indore project, and a riverfront spanning 3.9 kilometres has already been developed along the river.[2] Both the rivers are being rejuvenated under the Smart Cities Mission.[3]
Kanh has turned into a sewage dumpyard, where many industries have been dumping solid as well as liquid wastes into it, since the rapid industrialisation in the 70s.
As an additional load, the household drainage is also dumped into the Kanh without any purification or cleaning.[4]
There have been several attempts to clean the river since 1985, but none of them have materialised till date.[5]
In 2015, the Indian government announced Smart Cities Mission. Indore successfully qualified in Phase-1 of the Smart Cities Mission, it ranked eleventh on the list released by Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu (MoUD) and is one of the first twenty cities to be developed as Smart City.[6] The Smart City Indore mission was widely appreciated for the efforts put by the government in citizen engagement.
Under the mission, an amount of Rs 660 crores has been spent as of 2020 on Kanh and Saraswati riverfront development marking the completion of five out of eight stages of the riverfront's development.[7]
The Kanh rises from the Kakri Bardi hills which is also the source of the Shipra River.
Kanh later joins Shipra, which further joins into Chambal, then Yamuna and finally into the Ganga river.