Survey to decide Sukhna wet dredging
By Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — Provision of funds during the last and current financial year notwithstanding, wet dredging of Sukhna Lake may not begin until next year.

Though the Chandigarh Administration invited tenders from government and semi-government agencies for wet dredging of the lake in March this year and the Dredging Corporation of India was the only agency to bid to undertake this task, work could not be awarded after objections were raised by the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Environment.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests, after relenting a bid, has now asked the Chandigarh Administration to get a topography survey of the silted portion of the lake done so as to define the area required for raising the second bandh for undertaking wet dredging. Tenders have been invited for this topography survey.

On the basis of the survey, the local office of the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Environment would make a recommendation to the Union Government. The process, according to informed sources, may take several months before a final decision is taken.

It may be recalled that the administration had earlier this year given approval for wet dredging of the lake. A sum of Rs 200 lakh was earmarked for the project during the last financial year under the Ecology and Environment head. This money was transferred to the Engineering Department to get the work started on the first phase of the project going before the end of financial year 1998-99. The Engineering Department could only float tenders.

A similar financial provision has been made for the project in the current Budget.

The administration had decided in principle to go for wet dredging more than a year ago as the manual or mechanical desiltation from dry bed had shown little results. For the past couple of years, even the focus had shifted from shramdan to mechanical desiltation. Though symbolic shramdan was continued, the emphasis was on mechanical desiltation.

The administration has drawn a long-term plan to restore Sukhna Lake, a major tourist attraction, to its original shape. For the time being, the first phase of the wet dredging would cost Rs 475 lakh.

At present, the bed level of the lake has been silted up to the 1153 foot level.Once the wet dredging starts, it would be brought down first to a uniform level of 1148 ft which would be further brought down to 1145 ft level.

Since Sukhna Lake has been declared a wetland, the funds are provided under the Ecology and Environment head.

The wet dredging proposal ran into trouble as the Forests, Environment Department objected to use of a portion of the already silted and forest area for raising a second bandh in addition to the bandh near the regulator end of the lake.

In May this year, DCI officials held negotiations with the Engineering Department after an inspection of the site. But objections raised by the Forest and Environment Department forced the Engineering Department not to award the work to the DCI till the green signal came from the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

The Engineering Department in consultation with the DCI proposed to construct two bandhs — one inside the present water body and the second in the silted portion which now forms a part of the reserve forest. While the Forest and Environment people have no objection to the bandh inside the water body, they have raised objections to the outer one.

The bandhs, say engineers, are necessary so as to avoid total draining of the lake for dredging. By using the two bandhs, the water would be rerouted within the bound area to minimise loss in the dredging process.

In 1991 a notification under Section 4 of the Indian Forest Act was issued to declare the silted portion of the lake with thick vegetative growth as "reserve forest". But since Section 4 only indicates intention of the Government or the State to declare a particular area as reserve forest, the administration notified nearly 260 acres of Sukhna Lake and its surrounding areas as "reserve forest".

It may be mentioned here that the initial area of lake was 2.24 square kilometres. The area of the water body is only 1.5 square kilometre meaning thereby that 0.75 square km of the erstwhile water body has been redefined as a "reserve forest".

Under the Indian Forests Conservation Act, even the entry to a "reserve forest" is restricted what to talk of taking machinery inside for wet dredging.

But since Sukhna lake is an important feature of City Beautiful, the Ministry of Environment and Forest may permit wet dredging as a deeper lake with more water will have more fish and water life besides being a home to a wide variety of flora and fauna.

There are a couple of options to solve this problem, say experts. One is to offer an equal piece of chunk of land to be notified as reserve forest and the other could be temporary diversion.

The serene Sukhna Lake, the water body of which has already shrunk by 0.75 sq km to 1.50 sq km, needs immediate steps to prevent any further shrinkage of its water sheet.

'Indian democracy a demographic disaster'
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — "The period of indulgence is over and the Indian middle class needs to get out of its fortress mentality," said diplomat-turned-author, Pawan K. Varma, in his lecture 'Challenges Before the Elite and Middle Class at the Turn of the Millennium', at the English Auditorium, Panjab University, here today. The lecture was a part of the special lecture series, which had earlier featured singer Shubha Mudgal.

The author of the 'Great Indian Middle Class', 'Yudhishtar and Draupadi', 'Mansions at Dusk: The Havelis of Old Delhi' and other works, Varma has been in the Indian Foreign Service since 1976. He has been on important postings in the USA and the USSR.

The lecture was a hard-hitting talk on the educated, the urban and the elite class, which had withdrawn itself away from the civic world, while blaming politicians and the system for all the banes of our society. Rattling out figures on poverty, illiteracy and slums in the cities, Pawan said, "It is important to correlate these statistics to our lives and turn these figures in our heads. After 5,000 years of civilisation, it is a matter of concern and shame how insensitive we have become to all that is happening around us."

Commenting on the "insensitivity" of the middle class, he said there were two things happening to this class today. The first was development of a degree of insularity, because of which something that was happening at the doorstep was going unnoticed, and the second was the genuine conviction of this class that its world would remain intact even if things were going unnoticed.

"What we need is dictatorship with dandas," he said in a lighter vein. He referred to Indian democracy as "great demographic disaster".

Talking about solutions to problems of the country, Varma said survival of democracy in India was "a miracle". He said a leader cannot transform the country overnight "with his magic wand". He added that if the people wanted to wait for something like this to happen, maybe they could wait. He stated that no revolutionary technology was possible without the inclusion of "you and me".

"There are no solutions, except a serious involvement of those slightly more endowed than others. Today we need to bury the myth that the better can secede from the problems of India", said Pawan.

He added that what was required in the millennium by the middle class was not to be a resident alone but to try and be a citizen. "If we could not be Mahatma Gandhi, we have turned up as nothings," he said, while talking about the lack of role models.

In the question answer session, with most of the audience asking whether this was a moralistic lecture aimed towards a utopian dream,Varma said, "This plea is not about moral issues because I am tired of the deceit of ideologies. But what my concern is that we, as a nation, need to be enlightened for ourselves in the long run."

Answering a query on de-politicising the issue and the non-involvement of the state, he said, "I have never argued for the absence of the involvement of the state. I think the way the state has been hijacked by the middle class and has been taken for granted needs to be understood."

How do you explain that there are almost 100 million Indians belonging to this class, but only four million of them end up paying taxes, he asked. "The endeavour at the turn of the millennium needs to be to understand that what is at our doorstep today, can tomorrow be sitting at our faces in our drawing rooms," said Varma.