Govt spends Rs 500 Cr in 10 years

NL Correspondent

SRINAGAR: Governor N N Vohra recently reprimanded the officials over deteriorating condition of the Dal Lake despite the government having spent Rs 500 crore on the lake in the last one decade.

After his extensive tour Governor recently said that more than half of the water surface of the lake is no longer visible to the visitors because of the rapidly growing Lotus plant and a variety of weeds particularly because the ongoing de-weeding process is proceeding almost at a negligible pace, an official statement has said after Vohra conducted the tour.

He also took on the officials over the poor condition of the lake. Surprisingly, the government has spent Rs 500 crores on three conservation and management projects on Dal Lake since 2005, the condition of the famed lake continue to be deteriorated.

The Dal Lake is famous across the world and most of the tourists visit Srinagar to see the famed lake. The government had framed three centre and state sponsored major projects designed to lease fresh life to the Dal Lake. Instead the condition of the famed water body should have been improved, it has degraded despite spending huge amount of money since inception of these schemes due to mismanagement of the authorities.

A major project ‘National Lake Conservation Programme' was started in 2005 costing Rs 298.76 crore. Official sources revealed that an amount of Rs 273.85 crore has been released by the Government of India over the years. “Even though such a huge amount has been spent under this project, there has been no improvement in the condition of the Lake,” the official said.

The second conservation and management programme ‘Prime Minister's Reconstruction Programme' (PMRP) of 2010 costing Rs 356 crore under which 83.18 crores have been released so far. It was for acquisition of land and structures in Dal and Nigeen lake.

The third project was for the rehabilitation of the families dislocated from Dal and Nigeen lake. The project at a cost of Rs 416 crore for development of site at Rakh-I-Arth for preparation of site and provision for infrastructure like road, water supply, electricity, drainage, and sewerage and other community facilities and providing house units to the dwellers under State plan and Central assistance 315.90 crore and 90.92 crore respectively. “Under state plan an amount of Rs 84.56 crore has been utilized and under BSUP component an amount of Rs 20.43 crore has been released by the Government of India,” the official said.

Even though crores of rupees have been spent so far, the authorities have failed to restore the beauty of the famed Dal. It has been seen that Lakes and Water Development Authority is only carrying out de-weeding around the SKICC as the centre has a distinction of hosting important functions both government as well as private. Government has also failed to complete the rehabilitation process within a time frame work and all these projects have missed the deadlines.

“Almost all the funds released over the years have been spenton Dal Lake but there is no positive change. The LAWDA alone can't take steps for preservation of the Dal Lake.  It is the responsibility of each individual and there should be close coordination of all government departments for preservation of the Lake and funds are utilized properly,” a senior official said wishing not to be quoted by name. “Political intervention is also one of the reasons which create hurdles in taking of preservation measures of the Lake. Authorities need to relook where there has been mismanagement for implementation of preservation projects despite spending crores of rupees,” the official said.

Dal Lake is the second largest lake in the state and is divided into four basins Small Dal, Big Dal, Gagribal and Nigeen besides small and big Dal have each an island in the center known as Rup or Charchinari.