Guinness record holder organises marathon

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 26

A marathon was organised from Sukhna Lake in Chandigarh to Renuka Lake in Sirmaur to spread the message of “Mountain lakes are freshwater treasures”.

The initiative of “Good Lakes-Good Health” has been taken up by Dr Ritesh Arya, a geologist. He is also the Guinness World Record holder for drilling the highest borewell.

He is also the director of the Water and Geothermal Wing International Sustainable Energy Organisation, (ISEO), Geneva. ISEO aims at creating awareness to save the fragile ecosystem of the mountain lakes.

“Lakes are to be enjoyed and not polluted or encroached. Till there is water in the lakes, there will be water in the mountains. This was the main objective of the 127-km run. The marathon was joined by people from all walks of life, who expressed their solidarity with the cause,” said Arya.

He said people ran from a few kms to 125 kms during the one day event on March 22 last year and Sunil Sharma emerged as the star runner, who ran continuously for 13 hours 55 minutes to complete the event in a record time.

For today’s marathon, Master Aditya Arya ran 7 km at a stretch from Sukhna Lake to Penguin Chowk at IT Park, while ITBP personnel also joined the run till Ramgarh to support the event.

An appeal was made to build proper sewerage and waste disposal mechanism to make the Lake clean with zero tolerance to waste.

Underlining the importance of mountain lakes, Arya said they were store house of drinking water for people living in the mountain regions.

Based on his study on Ladakh Himalayas, he said the Pangong lake was a river in the geological past, but due to global warming, the glacial melted and the decreased discharge led to the formation of the lake.

Referring to his study on Tso Moriri Lake, he said the lake had receded to 1 metre in the last 1,000 years and approximately 8-10 metres in the last 11,716 years.

He said there was a need to set up scientific instrumental studies to measure the recharge and discharge of water at Renuka lake and develop a world-class infrastructure.