The
news that the state government is prepared to relax the land use rules in the
catchment area of the Upper Lake to enable the current additional chief Secretary
who is also the future chief secretary to build much more than 10% on his huge
plot is ominous. The question is if a blue-eyed boy of the chief minister is
allowed to build to his heart’s content on his plot of land close to the Lake
would the chief minister’s political and business cronies be far behind? Or for
that matter, would he and his family be far behind? If the additional chief
secretary gets a favourable relaxation in floor area ratio the flood gates will
be opened for more and more relaxations in the catchments of the Lake –
supposedly the life line of the City of Bhopal. It would be downright murder of
this thousand-year old water body.
Everybody
knew of the plan for quite some time. If one harks back to the City Plan that
was prepared to replace the 2005 Plan it was so oriented to cater to the
demands of the real estate lobby that the people raised a hue and cry and the
chief minister had to toss it in the waste bin. The real estate lobby has always
been wielding influence on the chief minister for reasons one can well imagine.
One saw it in the matter relating to the Central Business District from where
the lower middle class government employees were chased out, their houses were
demolished, thousands of trees were felled but the business district is yet to
come up. Rumours of heavy exchange of cash between Gammon India and the state’s
political establishment became pervasive.
That
was almost 10 years ago. Soon thereafter was the government’s brush with CEPT
(Centre of Environmental Planning and Technology of Ahmedabad) which the
government engaged – perhaps in its weaker moments – to suggest ways and means
to conserve the Upper Lake. Before it could submit its report the government
was already clearing proposals for construction of some educational institutions,
including Jagaran University, a sports authority complex and incredibly the
Sair Sapata, an amusement-park like outfit that was too close to threaten the
Lake and the birds in its Important Bird Area.
In
due course the CEPT submitted its report but that too was about five years ago.
The government neither rejected it nor did it act on it. It did not even
release it to the public though public money was spent for preparing the report.
It just sat on it and continues to do so with a sense of creepy impunity. That
recommendations of the CEPT did not quite match with the intentions and plans of
the government became clear as reportedly the real-estate lobby was not happy
with them.
Day by day it is becoming clear that catchments of the Lake that are
its source are now up for sale to the real estate lobby. The ruling party and
the government along with the real estate lobby seemingly are salivating at the
prospect of capitalizing the huge expanse of precious land close to the
capital. That this may sound the death knell of the Lake is of no concern to
them. What if money is made to inflate the burgeoning party and state coffers? After
all, the state elections are round the corner. And what if the construction
lobby makes billions and share their pickings with politicians and bureaucrats?
The lake could be taken care of by those
who follow in the government if they so wished. Otherwise, just forget about
it. The current trend apparently is that for short term gains everything,
including a inheritance from medieval times, could be sacrificed.
One
can see the hypocrisy of the government. On one hand preparations are afoot to
kill the Lake for all practical purposes, on the other hand the chief minister
has asked for voluntary labour, (he is also contributing his own) to deepen the
Lake as well as the streams that feed it. Time was when the streams were
perennial, now they are bone dry. At some places they are reportedly built
over. The chief minister surely knows that voluntary labour cannot achieve the
objective of deepening the Lake and its feeders. The whole move is only a kind
of tokenism to fool the people.
The utter neglect of the Lake and its
catchments have suffered at the hands of this government is to be seen to be
believed. As it has been reported, even the Lake Conservation Authority was wound
up and the State Wetland Authority, if there is any, is utterly ineffective.
The plan for the catchment that should have seen minimum construction may now
see high rises, stadia and sundry colonies coming up. Even irregular and
unauthorized colonies might be regularized. All their waste will mostly end up
in the Lake. It is likely to become a septic tank like the Shahpura Lake which
got the same epithet from one of the former BMC municipal commissioners. The damage
that the Lake and its catchments suffered during the tenure of this government
is unimaginable.
Hypocrisy
of the chief minister was again quite plainly revealed in respect of saving the
Narmada River. After allowing the River to be mined by sand mafia (including
his relatives) for sand down to its rocky beds he thought of the Narmada Seva
Yatra campaign. Initially unofficial, soon it became an official programme with
crores of rupees spent. The numerous objectives of the Yatra, including
construction of several sewage treatment plants along the river banks, have
mostly remained on paper.
The claim of planting 6 billion saplings along
its banks on a single day has raised a lot of dust. The Guinness Book of records
has asked for proof for planting billions of saplings on a single day which the
government has not been able to provide so far. The six crore saplings raised
as many questions as when the so-called Hindu saints contemplated a yatra (journey) to check the veracity of
the government’s claims six of the prominent ones were quickly given positions
of Ministers of state. They were thus bribed into giving up their
investigations. Having withdrawn their own yatra
they are now demanding all the perks of the positions in which they are now safely
ensconced. Other so-called saints, and there are plenty of them, are terribly angry
and displeased and are out to expose the chief minister.
Bluff and bluster does not
always work. Greed for another term is making the chef minister do things which,
I suppose, he would not have indulged in otherwise. But one can never tell
about a politician. They have mostly been unscrupulous and hardly ever won the trust of the people.
*Photofrom internet
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