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| HC asks Govt to release funds for cleaning Dal lake | | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, July 18 : A high court division bench of Chief Justice M M Kumar and Justice Hasnain Massodi has asked the state government to release funds for cleaning the Dal Lake and as a measure to tide over the situation, it directed immediate diversion of Rs 5 cr lying with LAWDA for "land acquisition". Earlier, advocate Z A Shah drew the court's attention towards the unprecedented weed growth and non-release of fubds by the government for deweeding.
A status report filed by Shafat Noor Barlas, holding additional charge as Vice Chairman, LAWDA, said that there was no European weed like azolla. "We are not interested in finding out the nature of weed, which has engulfed the whole Lake. However, the fact remains that there is a wild growth of weed throughout the lake and this has to be removed," the court said.
There is an indication in the affidavit filed by the present Vice Chairman, court said, that a Detailed Project Report (DPR) is being sent to the government for according technical and financial sanction.
At this point, Advocate General M I Qadri submitted that this would mature within four days. Barlas stated that the funds under the Head "Operations and Maintenance" (O&M) were not available. However, a sum of more than Rs 83 cr was available under Head "Land Acquisition", he said. "We have discussed the issue of diverting a sum of Rs. 5 cr from the Head "Land Acquisition" to the Account Head O&M in order to tide over the situation of clearing weeds from the lake so that the deweeding operations and the operation of STPs do not come to a standstill," the court ordered. The bench directed that a sum of Rs 5 cr from "Land Acquisition" Head be diverted to "Operations and Maintenance" Head, so as to start the deweeding process and to ensure the functioning of STPs. "This order shall not be subject to any other bureaucratic booby traps and the diversion of the funds under the signature of Shafat Noor Barlas would be sufficient because any further delay would not be in the interest of maintaining the lake and its beauty."
The division bench said the diversion of funds by its order should not be construed as satisfaction of the Government that no funds under O&M Head are required to be released. "The funds should be released as per the statement made by Advocate General and the compliance report be filed before the next date of hearing," the court said and posted the PIL for further consideration next week.
Meanwhile, the court also kept pending the issue regarding reengaging of Irfan Yasin Shah as vice chairman of LADWA even as Advocate General stated that the issue was under the consideration of Chief Minister. |
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