Under the Scheme for Special Assistance of States for Capital Investment FY 2022-23 by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, 6 urban reforms have been identified for implementation. Creation of resilient cities through the adoption of sponge cities approaches is one of the urban reforms identified. Sponge city approaches seeks to transition to a contemporary form of urban water planning and management.

A resilient sponge city has a capacity to mainstream urban water management into urban planning policies, designs. The concept entails (i) Restoring the city’s capacity to absorb, infiltrate, store, purify, drain, and manage rainwater, (ii) Regulate the water cycle as much as possible.

Alluvium developed a city scale masterplan for each city and identified pilot waterbody in each city to develop a detailed project report. In line with this vision and set of objectives, the Sponge City Master Plan included three components: i) Integrated Water Resource Management ii) Waterbody Rejuvenation Plan iii) Stormwater Management Strategy.