Revanth wants Seoul-inspired makeover for River Musi; is he on course?

Impressed by the South Korean Urban Rejuvenation miracle, Cheonggyecheon, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is looking at a mega restoration project for River Musi.    

There are similarities between the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project that runs through Seoul and the Musi that flows through the heart of Hyderabad.

But, while the similarities may seem striking, Revanth's multi-crore-rupee plan to rid the Musi of pollutants and develop a sizeable tourism project around it has already drawn widespread criticism. 

The Seoul example

While the Cheonggyecheon, which means 'clear stream', is a tributary of the sacred River Han, the Musi merges with the Krishna, a river revered by Telugus.

During the course of expansion and industrialisation of cities, the Cheonggyecheon and the Musi got transformed into massive sewers. The banks of both were occupied by migrants and the homeless, leading to hundreds of shanties. This further led to the degeneration of the rivers.

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The proposal of cleaning the rivers gripped politics in both the cities. The Cheonggyecheon formed the core issue in the 2002 Seoul mayoral election.

The promise tilted the balance in favour of Lee Myung-Bak, a former CEO of the Hyundai conglomerate who was elected with a comfortable margin.

As promised, Lee completed the project in record time and made it a global model for urban rejuvenation. Now, the transformed Cheonggyecheon is Seoul’s major attraction, drawing some of 64,000 visitors a day and contributing about 2.1 billion won ($1.9 million) to the city’s economy.

Revanth and big projects

While London's famed Thames rejuvenation has come to be seen as a global model, it was apparently not politically inspirational for an ambitious Revanth. What inspired him instead was the Korean success on the river front development, which formed the launch pad for Lee’s flight to presidency.

Revanth visited London in January 2024. In August, he flew to Seoul, where he was reportedly awestruck by the dramatic transformation.

He sent ministers, MLAs, officials and media persons to Seoul to study the tourism boom and economic prosperity around the rivulet.

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Like his predecessor K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), Revanth is fond of giant projects. He first announced the development of a fourth city in the state capital, called Future City. It would feature a Skills University, an AI Hub, a Health City and a world-class stadium. The other components of the capital region are Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Secunderabad.

Now, Revanth wants to embark on the Musi restoration project on the lines of the Seoul model with an outlay Rs 1.5 lakh-crore. A swanky Musi River Front Development will create a tourist hub in Hyderabad and historical structures along the river will soon transform into tourist centres, he claims.

Opposition cries foul

But Opposition parties in Andhra Pradesh are crying foul. BJP leader and Union minister Bandi Sanjay has termed the project a 'Congress ATM'. 

“The previous BRS government led by Chandrasekhar Rao raised Rs 1 lakh-crore for the Kaleshwaram project and used it as its ATM. Now, the Revanth government wants to raise Rs 1.5 lakh-crore in the name of Musi Rejuvenation Project, to use as its own ATM,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

KCR's party Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has dubbed the project India's biggest scandal in the making.

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“The Congress government is planning a massive Rs 1.5 lakh-crore Musi project which will displace over one lakh people living on its banks for over 50 years. This will become the country's biggest scandal,” said KT Ramarao, KCR's son, former state minister and BRS's working president.

Displacement worries

The BRS and the BJP are vying with each another to mobilise the people likely to be displaced by the Musi project, keeping an eye on next year’s Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections.

The people living in shanties on the river banks have started resisting demolition moves by the government.

Commenting on the resistance, Telangana Revenue and Housing Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy said there were similar protests in Seoul too when the Cheonggyecheon project was started.

“Eventually, the community recognised the project’s importance,” he told Telugu journalists in Seoul on Thursday.

Experts sound warnings

While the Opposition grouse is around the project cost and human displacement, experts say the project may innately not deliver on the government's promises.

According to public policy expert Prof Donti Narasimha Reddy, mere beautification of the Musi won’t lead to its rejuvenation.

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The restoration of the river goes beyond urban beautification, skyscrapers or recreational spaces, he said. “If the government is committed to its rejuvenation, it should focus on ensuring the flow of treated water into the river," he told The Federal.

He added that the rejuvenation effort should not be confined to a mere 55 km of the 270-km-long river. “Failing to address pollution in the remaining stretch of the river could render the rejuvenation project ineffective,” he warned.

Lee’s dark side

What has been subsumed by excessive praise for the Seoul project is the fate of Lee Myung-Bak. While such projects typically take 15-25 years, Lee completed it in just 27 months. It catapulted him as a national hero and he won the presidential election in 2008, becoming South Korea’s first CEO-turned-head of state.

But in 2018 he was arrested on charges of bribery, tax evasion, embezzlement and abuse of power. He was sentenced to 17 years' imprisonment.

This could, perhaps, serve as a red flag for Revanth — a mega project that seeks to clean a river, transform a city and enhance the local economy could so easily slip into an instrument of corruption. He could take the good and leave out the bad.