Bhopal Notes :: 52 :: Bhopal's pride is grave yard for fish

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Upper Lake, Bhopal

What has now been reported had to happen sooner or later. It has, in fact, happened sooner than later. The local daily reported yesterday that dead fish were found floating near the Boat Club on the Upper Lake. Obviously the pollution of the lake waters has attained such levels that its oxygen content has ebbed like, perhaps, never before killing off the marine mammals. With rains still far off and the lake losing its waters due to usual offtake for supplies and rising rate of evaporation in the sustained heat of 42+ degrees Centigrade the pollution level of the waters has gone up with sewage and other drains flowing into it with their normal intensity. No wonder the fish have become a casualty. None, however, knows which other mammals or organisms of the bio-diverse lake have packed off.

Those who are caretakers of this millennium old largest man-made lake in the country are more concerned about the visitors to the lake-front. They are, therefore, busy in providing greater attractions as also amenities for them. Undertaking construction, they are building view points for people to come and admire the immense natural beauty of the Lake further beautified by large unmatched jets. Only if they had a similar concern for the quality of its waters which are used for drinking purposes by a substantial numbers of citizens and others like us would have had no reason to complain.

They, unfortunately, showed no such concern. It has been more than 12 years since the Bhoj Wetland Project financed by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency ran its extended course of ten years and was terminated. The unspent money of the project was used in constructing physical assets like an auditorium, an Interpretation Centre etc. but no money was spent on blocking the sewers and sundry drains that bring sullage and sewage to the Lake. In the intervening 12 years they could not check these pernicious flows and install the required number of sewage treatment plants and run them efficiently. Eight to nine of such drains continue to dump millions of litres of sewage into the Lake. No wonder, the fish are dying – perhaps other organisms too are dying. Not many can survive consuming plain and raw sewage. One does not know what the condition of the birds is, the ones that roost nearabout the Lake. Most, for the presence of whom in large numbers the Wetland was designated a Ramsar Site, had deserted the Upper Lake long ago, anyway; they find neighbouring water bodies far more congenial and hospitable than this one which once used to be their haunt for years, maybe decades and centuries.

Three researchers of universities located in the state had prognosticated that the lake would not remain useful in another eighty years if its maintenance continues in the manner it is being carried out currently. The Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), Ahmedabad, which the government of Madhya Pradesh had engaged for suggesting measures for conservation of the Upper Lake, had recently stated that the Lake would not remain useful in twenty years’ time unless measures to protect and conserve it were commenced right away. The report of the CEPT has been gathering dust for around four years now for reasons known to the government. The government has neither released it for public information nor has it taken action on its recommendations. Perhaps its recommendations to stop constructions on the banks of the Lake and its catchments did not appeal to the political masters and the construction lobby. There seems to be a stalemate as even the National Green Tribunal could only have a look at the CEPT report but could not have it released for public comments. It is a strange irony that public has been denied access to a report that was prepared after extensive studies by an expert body at public expense.

I distinctly recall a meeting a few years ago with this very chief minister with members Bhopal Citizens’ Forum. Even then, as today, conservation of the Upper Lake was a big issue. During the course of the conversation he had categorically said that as long as he was there (at the helm) he would not allow the lake to be harmed. It is the same chief minister who has been (fraudulently) promoting conservation of River Narmada even as illegal sand mining continues on it but has allowed the reputed lifeline of the people of Bhopal to come to the brink of its demise. If anybody or any organization is responsible for the current deplorable condition of the Lake which is peddled for tourism in Bhopal, it is none other than the Madhya Pradesh government along with the Bhopal Municipal Corporation which would be culpable and need to be indicted. It is these that are trying to kill this very vital asset of the people of Bhopal

Is Upper Lake awaiting Lake Ulsoor's fate

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Known as “the Silicon Valley of India” or the IT capital of the ountry, Bangalore, now Bengaluru, has had a fairy tale rise in the urbanscape of India. Demographically it has bulged or bloated over the last few decades and simultaneously it has had unremitting hunger for hosting a huge number of techies so much so that it has the largest number of them per square metre.  Despite having become an international destination and virtually a global city its civic apathy is to be seen to be believed.

Once upon a time Bangalore used to be clubbed with Dehra Doon and Poona (now Pune) as idyllic retirement destinations after a lifetime of supposedly back-breaking jobs under the colonial government. Soon after independence Bangalore, then of salubrious climes and dotted with picturesque water bodies, became the chosen one for development of industries. Hindustan Machine Tools, popularly known as HMT, was perhaps the first to be located there. With that, however, was sounded the death knell of Bangalore’s salubruity and other attendant distinctions. Over the following decades numerous industries were located within its precincts with consequential upward swing in its demographics. That took a heavy toll of its green ambiance and water bodies that were, encroached upon, built over, filled up or, at best, neglected by the people and the municipality. At the last count there were only 17 of them as against 51 that used to exist decades ago and beautify the city.

Ulsoor is one of them that has survived the human onslaught. If one

looked at its pictures one would get the feel of serenity, tranquility and, of course, beauty. Lately, however, it has become another victim, like numerous others, of the city’s civic apathy. Thousands of lifeless fish, big and small, landed up on its shores the other day for the simple reason that leaks in sewers had been emptying sewage into it depriving the fish of life-giving oxygen.

That sewers emptying into the water bodies is not something with which we in Bhopal are not unfamiliar. Our own Upper Lake is still receiving sewage from a number of drains despite several projects to stop this inflow. Multi-crore almost ten-year long international project that ran from 1994- 2004 funded by Japan like the Bhoj Wetland Project could not stop it. While we the citizens are being supplied water from the Lake generously mixed with sewage we also are being taxed for the interests to be paid for the soft loan that the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation provided. Such double whammies are the ironies that are inflicted on the citizens without batting an eyelid by those who are in authority. The municipality shamelessly spends tax-payers’ money for beautification of the Lake in a bid to, ill-advisedly and unwisely, invite more and more visitors forgetting that it would help the citizens enormously if it plugged the flow of sewage into it.

Probably that day is not far off when fishes are washed up on the Upper Lake shores or are seen floating on its blue surface lifelessly. Perhaps, only then the municipality would wake up as that would hit its ill-gotten revenues from so-called tourism with visitors shunning the Lake. We have already had an experience of such an incident when large numbers of dead fish were noticed floating in front of the Benazir Palace in one of the heritage ponds known as Motia Talaab.

One therefore wonders whether one should vicariously feel happy at the Silicon Valley of India getting a taste of Bhopal!

*Photos from internet