After the plan of buying the machinery from Alang was shelved, however, the elected wing and civic engineers insisted that the ``over-silted'' river had to be dredged to increase its water-carrying capacity. Since the civic body could not bear the expense, the State government had to, they said.

``The question is who will do it; after all, it involves millions of rupees'', says city engineer K M Parekh. City mayor Bhikhabhai Boghra agrees, ``If the SMC tried to do it, our entire budget would prove unequal to the task.''

Former Standing Committee chairman Ajay Choksi suggests the SMC allocate a fixed amount for the purpose every year. ``Dredging is absolutely necessary. The black cotton soil layer, which has accumulated over the years at the bottom of the river, has reduced the river's percolating capacity considerably. As a result, salinity is on the rise'', he says.

Noted dam and soil expert M D Desai, however, doesn't believe the river should be dredged. ``The river-bed level has been the same since 1968'', he says. ``If it's dredged, the river banks will collapse. As it is, sand contractors are removing sand from the river-bed anyway.''

Claiming that he was the one who persuaded the civic chief to drop the idea of dredging the river, Desai says it was the mouth of the river that needed to be dredged, not the river itself. State Water Resources Minister Narottam Patel, however, disagrees with Desai. ``He says strange things that I can't comprehend, though I'm a civil engineer too'', he says, adding that though dredging was very expensive, the government would try to earmark some funds for it next year.