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| White paper needed on Dal conservation | | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Dec 29: Whenever the executive has failed in rectifying the wrong the judiciary has no other alternative but to intervene. And surprisingly the judiciary in Jammu and Kashmir had to intervene when it found the executive or even the legislature having failed in ensuring pollution and encroachment free Dal Lake in Srinagar which has, over the last one hundred years, been a source of attraction for home and foreign tourists. Though the plan of conservation of the Dal Lake had been initiated around 1978-79 by the then Chief Minister, Sheikh Abdullah, who had conceived the scheme of building and developing the foreshore around the Lake so that all the Houseboats could be anchored close to the shore leaving the sprawling water surface free of encroachment. Alas! the Sheikh could not see his dream of a clean and weed free lake materialise.
After Sheikh Abdullah the plan on conservation of the lake is being carried out under a Centrally Sponsored Scheme. Since 2005 several thousand crores of rupees have been spent on the conservation and development of the lake besides acquiring land for the rehabilitation of those families which were to be evicted from the lake waters under the conservation scheme. The current condition of the lake, with its more area encroached and totally polluted, speaks volumes about the waste of funds released by the centre for the conservation of the lake.
In spite of the fact that a large chunk of land had been acquired by the Government for rehabilitating over 1100 families of boatmen living on the lake waters either in the houseboats, or in small gondolas or in houses and huts, built on developed marshes not a single family has been so far shifted out of the lake waters. This and continued rise in the level of pollution of the lake waters have forced some nature lovers to knock the doors of the High Court. And the Court had instructed houseboat owners to anchor their boats close to the shores and over 300 feet away from the Boulevard.
The houseboat owners had not been in a position to implement the court direction which had forced a civilian to file a PIL in the court. Taking a serious note of the non-compliance of the court directions by houseboat owners, the High Court has observed that the Government should explore the possibility of shifting the houseboats on the Dal Lake from their present position. The court has also observed that these houseboats could be shifted to the Doldrum area, which is another location inside the Dal Lake. These observations have been made the other day by a Division Bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar. The High Court has been hearing a Public Interest Litigation plea calling for the conservation of the Dal Lake and has been monitoring the efforts of the Government in this regard for many years.
The High Court seems to have taken serious cognizance about the rising level of pollution of the lake and in a bid to prevent the lake from getting more polluted and to supervise the State Government's efforts to conserve the lake, the High Court had on October 29 directed the houseboat owners to shift their anchored houseboats from their existing position on the lake by 300 feet from the Boulevard Road, which forms the outer periphery of the lake. The High Court had ordered that the retrieval process of around 230 houseboats should be carried out within 10 days.
However, the boat owners have so far shown non-compliance of the court directions, citing many reasons. In reality the successive Governments led by the National Conference have not dared to adopt firm measures on evicting all the Houseboat owners families settled on the lake waters because they feared that the party would lose its vote bank on the assumption that families of boatmen and their relations and friends have supported the National Conference in the Assembly elections since 1977. If it is the case why should the State Government accept funds from the Central Government for the conservation and development of the lake? Now that the State agencies have been receiving funds from the Central Government year after year it would be in the interest of people if the Government issued a white paper on the expenses of the funds under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme so that people were able to know whether the funds have been properly utilised or misappropriated. Better would be if the Centre set up a committee of experts to find out whether its funds released for the conservation of the Dal Lake were ever utilised within the parametres of the project report or misused. |
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