Bhopal Notes :: 55 :: Tale of two “cities of lakes”

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Proverbially, comparisons are odious but there are occasions when it becomes necessary to make comparisons. I just came across a report on the way the lakes in another “City of Lakes”, Udaipur, are being taken care of. Enough has been written about the way our own lakes, including the ones that fall into the category of “heritage”, are treated. We take pride in calling Bhopal a “City of Lakes” and market it as such. We also claim that the Upper Lake is the pride of Bhopal and it symbolizes the city, to boot. And, yet the treatment that the state government and the Municipal Corporation, the custodian of the Lake, give to it amounts to nothing short of trying to kill it as soon as possible. One might add both the cities are in the list of those which are being upgraded as “smart cities”. While Udaipur has included its lakes for being “smartened up” no such decision has been taken in respect of the lakes of Bhopal by the special organization created for making the city smart.

In a recent report in The Pioneer I came across a write-up on the way the lakes of Udaipur are being taken care of and how attempts are being made to “rejuvenate” them. The lakes obviously are held in reverence as these are now treated as indicative of “inherited smartness” of the town. With smart planning and implementation, the Udaipur Municipal Corporation has already made two of the city’s lakes, viz. Fateh Sagar and Gowardhan lake, free of sewage. Two other important lakes, Pichola and Swaroop Sagar, are next to be taken up for making them sewage-free.

The report also says that a Lake Patrolling Squad has been constituted and is in position in order to prevent illegal constructions around the lakes. The municipality has, in addition, devised a scheme of cash incentives for those who report instances of illegal constructions near the lakes or of sewer drains flowing into any of the city’s lakes through “Action Udaipur App”.

The report claims that Udaipur serves as a role model in regard to immersion of clay or plaster of Paris images of gods and goddesses in the lakes after every festival. Immersions are reported to be carried out only symbolically. Apparently, this has had the desired effect and people, no less religious than those of Bhopal, are cooperating. According to the report, people are very possessive about the lakes. They willingly involve themselves in shramdaan and other activities relating to maintenance of cleanliness, etc. Therefore, it seems, they are prepared to do whatever is necessary to conserve their lakes.

People here in Bhopal, however, are keen to make merry on the lake front but have displayed a “hands-off” attitude in so far as efforts to conserve them is concerned. People’s participation was noticed only once about a decade ago when the Upper Lake was in dire straits. The effort led by the chief minister to deepen the Upper Lake proved to be futile as the work involved was much beyond what five hundred-odd pairs of hands could achieve.

 In none of the aspects referred to in respect of the lakes of Udaipur has the Bhopal Municipal Corporation able to either initiate action for improvement of quality of the waters of the Upper Lake, a source of drinking water, or to prevent illegal encroachment/constructions around it. In fact it has turned a blind eye to these illegal activities and has itself commenced illegal construction within 500 metres of the Full Tank Level. There is no action seems to be in the offing and eight drains continue since one-does-not-know-when to empty their various contaminants, including sewage into the Lake. The Corporation does not seem to have even mooted the problem before the state government for diversion of the  drains or installation of sewage treatment plants.

Besides, the authorities are still struggling to prevent immersion of plaster of Paris images in the Upper Lake. Every year it is the same story. Either the orders are not disseminated clearly or artisans are resistant to change, being non-cooperative; control on the size and material to be used for the images continues to elude the administration. Somehow the Municipal Corporation of Bhopal has failed to elicit cooperation from general public in regard to conservation of the important water body. On the other hand, the Udaipur Municipal Corporation has incentivized reports/complaints from the common people regarding efforts to damage the eco-systems of the lakes.

Perhaps, our local body should draw lessons from the Udaipur municipality in respect of conservation of the lakes of Bhopal. Perhaps it understands that by simply calling the town “City of Lakes” and blazing it prominently in red on the Upper Lake neither conserves it or other lakes, nor does it make the town a city of lakes.

*Photo of Pichola Lake is from internet

Bhopal Notes :: 30 ::City of filthy lakes

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With the problem of smart city behind us, we will have to concentrate on other vital issues of citizens. However, we cannot consider ourselves absolutely free from the problems that may crop up at the new site of the smart city. Here, too, there are reported to be more than a thousand trees. These cannot be allowed to be cut down unless absolutely necessary, with emphasis on “absolutely”. People will have to see how many of them can be saved. If I recall, there are trees that are huge and, apparently, pretty old. These cannot be sacrificed at the altar of the smart city. Perhaps, another battle in this regard is awaiting us; the powder has to be kept dry.

One major nagging issue of concern is the Upper Lake and its proper upkeep. The custodian of the Upper Lake, Bhopal Municipal Corporation has been rather self-willed and, shall we say, mischievous. Despite the orders of the National Green Tribunal it has been tinkering with the Khanugaon-side shore of the Lake. I have myself had occasion to see a wall being erected and some digging along the length of what is known as the View Point. It will be recalled that the Corporation had formulated plans to construct a pedestrian and a cycle track next to the Lake. The Green Tribunal ordered stoppage of the construction.  But the Corporation seems to have been carrying on its activities without let or hindrance, unseen and unchecked by anybody. It is nothing but a mischievous activity.

Besides, the other day the People’s Samachar reported that the Corporation itself is polluting the Lake. It reported that the toilet facilities provided by it at the Boat Club empties its wastes directly into the Lake. This toilet was built because of the absence of one at a place where thousands congregate. A noble idea, but one cannot put up with the toilet emptying itself into the Lake. The question is whether permission of NGT was obtained before construction. And, surprisingly it never occurred to the cell in the Corporation dealing with conservation of the Lake to put its foot down on the proposal.

Thus the Corporation has added another drain to the nine that are emptying into the lake. There is no movement in the Corporation to divert the drains to the sewage recycling plants but it is ever keen to initiate construction work on and around the Lake front. The employees are so greedy; any civil work fetches them some extra (ill-gotten) money. The  newspaper report mentions the findings of the Central Pollution Control Board in which it seems to have been stated that around 24 crore 50 lakh litres of sewage go into the Lake without being treated. Apparently only 40 mld can be treated every day and the rest amounting to 285 mld are getting into the Lake.

The paper reports that under the Bhoj Wetland project four sewage treatment plants were established out of which only one is functional. The rest of the three plants discharge sewage into the Lake without being treated. No proposal to set right the non-functional treatment plants has ever been reported. This is nothing but playing around with the health and well-being of the people who consume the water supplied from the Lake. I had once suggested at the Bhopal Citizens’ Forum meeting that the Corporation should not be allowed to carry out any new civil work, unless specifically asked to by NGT or the government, in and around the Lake until it plans and works to stop flow of sewage into it. Perhaps our representative could put the suggestion across to the NGT at the time of the next hearing in connection with the upkeep of the Lake.

 The other water bodies too in the city are suffering because of the neglect of the municipal body. Several drains empty sewage into even in the Lower Lake. Having failed to stop their flow into the Lake for years on end the Corporation built a laser auditorium on its bank and when it proved to be a loss making proposition it promptly thought of shifting the whole thing to the Boat Club. Curiously, there is no check in the Corporation on its imprudent expenditure and it thus freely wastes public money.

I recall once an ex- municipal commissioner of Bhopal had described the Shahpura Lake as a septic tank. That was years ago and there has hardly been any change in its status since then. It continues to be saturated with sewage. Under the NGT”S directions some measures were taken but all that seems to have lost steam. Now even the Motia Talab seems to have been getting sewage from a source that was not revealed in the news report.

The bare fact is that though the government, the Corporation and all and sundry keep shouting about the lakes that are supposedly the city’s identity they are all, in fact, sewage pits – some big and some small. Shamelessly, they are inviting people to “the City of lakes” which , in fact, is a city of filthy lakes. This has to change and Bhopal Citizens’ Forum can have this change effected.

*Photo from internet

A President's priority

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An abandoned ship near the Lake

Saving a dying lake was the first cabinet decision of the newly-elected Iranian president, Hussain Rouhani. Every other matter of vital importance to the country, including the issues surrounding its nuclear programme, was kept aside and action to prevent the nation's largest lake from disappearing assumed greater importance.

Lake Oroumieh is one of the biggest salt water lakes in the world. Over the years it has shrunk more than 80% to about 1000 square kilometres. The main causes put out by the experts are climate change, expanding irrigation and damming of rivers that feed the lake. Lakes in other parts of Iran are also facing similar crisis

The Iranian president's action indicates the importance he attaches to environment in general and water bodies in particular. Quite obviously he believes that water is life-sustaining and nothing could be of greater importance than securing it for his people That he

A view of the drying Lake

gave overriding priority to saving the Lake over myriad other problems the country is facing internally as well as externally says much about his vision and commitment to the cause of country's environment.

In India the head of the government, totally committed to GDP growth, has been mostly unconcerned about damage to environment so much so that he removed two ministers who happened to be heading the ministry of environment. Both were trying to protect the country's forests from the rapacious industry.

Another view of the Lake

Closer home the state chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, too, is unconcerned about environment. While his government has been merrily feeding the real estate lobby with prime forest and farm lands, he has allowed the thousand year old lake, unlike Lake Oroumieh a drinking water source, to slowly die. For the Iranian president saving the Lake Oroumieh was a national priority, saving the Bhopal lake does not figure anywhere in the chief minister's priorities.

All photos form the Internet

Recent rumblings about Bhopal Lakes

Sunset on the Upper Lake

Occasionally a wrong step may eventually lead to what one may call course-correction. Something similar happened recently in regard to the Upper Lake of Bhopal. The Urban Administration Department (UAD), under the leadership of its minister, rustled up a project of a couple of hundred crores for conservation and beautification, inter-alia, of the Upper Lake for onward transmission to the government of India for approval. The UAD, under the minister, having been used to treating itself as the owner and decider for its development, conservation and beautification, ignored the Empowered Committee for Management of the Lake and overlooked the fact the Centre for Environmental Planning (CEPT), the renowned institution of Ahmedabad, earlier engaged by it for recommending measures for planning, development and conservation of the Lake was yet to submit its report (for reasons attributable not to it but to the state and government). 

On being highlighted in the vernacular press, the Mayor, who is also the chairperson of the Empowered Committee, is reported to have expressed her unhappiness. Even the Chief Secretary got into the act and summoned a meeting of the Empowered Committee. At the meeting the UAD, however, got a face-saver in the shape of approval of the project but it seems to have been kept on the back-burner. The good that came about from the imbroglio was about the report of the CEPT. Instead of being delayed until the next assembly elections as was being reported, it will now come out by May next. That will, hopefully, put an end to all unilateralism of the UAD, which under the directions of its minister and in association with State Tourism Development Corporation has converted the shores of the Lake into a museum of sorts, planting there an old steam locomotive, a model of a Indian Navy ship and a squat and ugly representation of the legendary ancient king facing the main artery of the town. The department and its handmaiden, the Tourism Corporation, have played havoc with the water body and its ecosystem in several ways details of which need not be mentioned here.

It might be of interest that the UAD in its project has also proposed development, beautification and conservation of the three other water bodies, famously known as the three “cascading lakes”, a part of unique heritage of the city. While the one at the very top, the Motia Talab, is somewhat alive, the two others in descending order are being choked to death by encroachments. Over the years encroachers have had a

Part of Motia Talab with Tajul Masajid in background

free run and houses have been constructed and continue to be constructed even today with the municipal corporation and the UAD acting as bystanders and mute spectators. It seems, the encroachers have secured stay on orders of their removal from the courts and the orders have been in force now for more than a decade. While the municipality, seemingly, is in deep slumber encroachers have gone about grabbing more and more of the two lakes.

Even the so-called marriage-gardens located by the side of the Upper Lake and spewing their waste into it are reported to have obtained stays from the local courts on orders of their removal and these have been in force for years on end. One wonders whether these stays will remain in force till eternity. One can only think of two possibilities: either the lawyers of the municipality are thoroughly incompetent or the whole lot, including lawyers and municipal officials from top to bottom, are corrupt being in the pay of the encroachers. It is astounding that a civic body with all the administrative and financial support it can muster and with all the paraphernalia at its command is unable to get for years the stay(s) vacated to free the lands and structures of the city’s heritage of which it is the custodian. Nothing could be more reprehensible than this.   

Photos: Bandana Bagchi 

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