Wular conservation suffers delay at the hands of state authorities

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 9

Known as one of the largest fresh water lakes in Asia, Kashmir’s Wular Lake is in dire need of money and proper planning for its restoration. Years of plantation and siltation have eaten away nearly half of its area.

The Rs 120-crore Central project to conserve and manage the lake, which was approved in 2011, witnessed several delays. It took more than a year to set up the Authority by the state, which is a prerequisite for the release of funds.

Four years later, with less than a month left for the completion of the 13th Finance Commission, only the first instalment of Rs 30 crore has been completely utilised. The second instalment of Rs 30 crore was released recently, after the the first was used.

Secretary, Forest department, Mohammad Afzal Bhat admitted that the utilisation of funds was slow due to “technical delays”. He said the funds could have been instantly used had the entire amount been released in one go. “We could have outsourced the works had the funds not been released in instalments,” he said.

From a vantage point along the Srinagar-Bandipora road, which gives a panoramic view of the Wular, it is difficult to locate the lake’’s water with silt and plantation covering most of its surface.

Trucks ply over the pathways in the lake to collect the extracted silt as workers try to clear out section after section.

So far, eight sectors —measuring .2625 sq km — have been cleared and restored in the lake while extraction and clearing of soil from eleven sectors —measuring .2375 sq km —will be completed by mid-March, said an official associated with a Centrally sponsored conservation plan.

However, extraction of land mass spread over a whopping 28 sq km is needed to restore the lake to its original size, officials said.

The officials said more money and time was needed to preserve the lake, dredge out the land, remove plantation and restore the Wular to its original size. “An amount of Rs 386 crore is required to dredge just 4 sq km area and Rs 120 crore for 1.5 sq km area,” the official claimed.

As part of the initiative to protect and preserve the lake, the Union Government in 2011 had approved the Wular Lake Conservation Project at a cost of Rs 120 crore under the 13th Finance Commission. The state government had asked for Rs 386.39 crore.

The officials said the lake’s size had decreased by nearly 45 per cent in the last century. The lake’s area has been eaten away due to “change in land use” as 17 per cent of its territory has been converted into plantation land and 25 per cent is being used for agricultural purposes.

Over the years, siltation created massive chunks of land in the lake over which more than 20 lakh trees were planted by various government departments, officials said. In the past three years, 26,448 trees had been removed from the lake, they added.

“It has been found that the lake has shrunk even in the peak season, when the water level is at its highest. The lake got critically silted,” the official said.

The lake has shrunk from 157 sq km in 1911 to 86.71 sq km today.