Bhopal Notes :: 47 :: Insane Municipal Corporation

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I have had to come back again to the subject of our Upper Lake that seems like is being killed by the government and its custodian the municipal corporation. A report that appeared in an English language local newspaper talked of how the municipality’s Upper Lake-centric recreational projects are going to prove to be harmful for it.

Subhash Pande, a green activist has expressed concern about various initiatives of the Municipal Corporation in and around the lake that in no way are going to improve the quality of its waters or enhance its life. The Corporation is mostly trying to provide more means of entertainment and relaxation to attract greater numbers of visitors to the Lake side. In fact, if one looks at the plans it would seem that left to the Corporation the Lake would have a ring of places providing entertainment around it. From boating, to food parks, musical fountains and several view-points, all are being planned or are under execution. As it is the Lake has to bear the burden of thousands of visitors every day who assemble at the Boat Club to the detriment of its waters.

While the green activist has dealt with the denial of the authorities to make public the report of the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology of Ahmedabad containing proposals for “wise use” of the wetland, creating again an access for a view point from the VIP road for a view point that was once given up for environmental reasons and the retaining wall that was being raised and was not demolished despite the orders of the chief minister there are other concerns that have somehow been missed.

A mention needs to be made of a news report regarding a multi-crore project of installation of musical fountains and organizing a laser show not far from the Boat Club.  An e-tender was issued for the purpose almost a year back after the laser show at Neelam Park on the Lower Lake had to be discontinued for want of audiences. It was reported that the laser show was making a loss of around six lakhs per annum - not a very big amount, but an enormous waste of financial, material and human resources for creation of the necessary infrastructure for the ill-conceived laser show had already been incurred. An auditorium was built for the purpose which is now lying unused. When the show was not attracting crowds the Corporation officials had remarked that the site for the show was not properly chosen. Had it been located somewhere on the Upper Lake it would have drawn crowds of spectators. They just didn’t realize that a heavy daily dose of shows of whether of laser or dancing fountains wouldn’t attract crowds for long on a daily basis.

That very idea is probably being taken forward and hence the e-tender. A news item today mentioned a new auditorium for 600 people is likely to be built somewhere near the Boat Club for projection of history of Bhopal on a wall of water created on the Lake with the help of a hundred-odd nozzles.

The Corporation seems to have a never-say-die attitude and all the time works on peripheral issues instead of the fundamental ones. In its efforts to please the people by making provision of such means of entertainment instead of trying to do the basic work of providing to them clean, unpolluted drinking water from the Lake. Crores of rupees have been sunk in this kind of effort but it is not concerned about sewage draining into the lake from as many as nine drains without the intervention of treatment plants.

Apparently, there is nobody to check all the ill-conceived projects and profligacy of the Municipal Corporation. Environmental authorities including the Pollution Control Board are mute witnesses to the excesses of the Corporation on the Upper Lake particularly when the Lake is not in a healthy state. And, what the Corporation is doing is to further damage an unhealthy Lake. Experts who used to come to attend workshops in EPCO around ten years ago used to say that collection of large numbers of people on the banks of the Lake was injurious to it. But the Corporation, in collaboration with the local tourism outfit, tried to do just that and that too successfully. Today the situation is so alarming that reports say that parking of vehicles is causing problems at the Boat Club. People in such large numbers come to the Boat Club which is precisely the place where such large numbers of cars are not supposed to be.

In fact, in a similar situation in a western country the authorities there would not have allowed construction of a road like the VIP road that we have or a highway along the lake. According to their environmentalists, even automobile traffic at close proximity to a body of water is harmful for its waters. Here, of course, the VIP Road was a dire need with fast-developing congestion on the conventional road from the airport and once it was built it became a fait accompli – nothing could be done about it regardless of the heavy traffic that plies on it.

Pande has rightly said that the need to address the internal condition of the Lake is urgent. Its waters continue to be polluted by sewage flowing into it despite the orders of the local bench of the National Green Tribunal. Besides the catchments of the Lake have to be taken care of to ensure that farms therein engage in organic farming and constructions there also are kept to the minimum. Likewise, the beds of its feeder streams have to be kept clear of encroachments. All these essential activities are neglected and, strangely, projects are consistently drafted for works that are harmful for the Lake.

The Municipal Corporation seems to have gone insane; there does not seem to be no other word for it.

Bhopal Notes :: 43 :: THE FOULED UP LAKE

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Its waters are dangerous to touch and risky to drink

Now it is official; the waters of the Upper Lake are not fit for bathing or even sipping – a ritual that is called “achaman” observed by Hindus after their prayers. The Locally based Pollution Control Board issued a warning for the people who were to perform their rituals on the banks of the Lake on the occasion of Chhath Puja that was to take place last Sunday. The Chhath festival is dedicated to the Sun and his consort Usha to thank them for the bounties bestowed on people. Celebrated generally by people of Bihar, it has now almost become a national festival as the Bihari Diaspora is present virtually in all states.

The Pollution Control Board said while exposure of the skin to the waters could cause skin diseases, especially eczema, ingesting it would be more dangerous as the e-coli count is almost double the level far higher than what can be tolerated by normal humans. This had to happen as the powers that be, including those in the Department of Environment and the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, have never bothered to divert sewage and other pollutants that make their way to the Lake through as many as nine drains. They have had project after project but the situation has not changed. Perhaps the conditions have worsened. No wonder the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) has predicted if action is not taken on its plans for the Lake submitted as far as back as in 2013 the Lake most likely would disappear in 20 years.

On the one hand the Tourism Development Corporation has, seemingly, acquired proprietary rights over it and pushing projects one after another without any regard to their impact on the Lake. While the Boat Club has become the hub for people to come and collect in large numbers, boating has gone up exponentially. One shudders to see so many motorised boats plying on the Lake that is a source of drinking water. In no civilized country a drinking water source is used in such a casual manner as in Bhopal. The Tourism Corporation may have improved its own bottom line by putting motor boats in the waters of the Lake in contravention of the prevailing ban but it has brought the Lake into red. There are other lakes like those at Shahpura or the Lower Lake where the motor-boating could be diverted but no, every activity has to be undertaken at the Upper Lake This is not counting the Sair Sapata, the huge amusement park that has come in Prempura, again, on the banks of the Lake The outfit was bad in concept and has been bad in its effect on the Lake. As is understood, the CEPT has recommended in its report a shift for the tourism unit from its present location.

While the MP State Tourism Department has played havoc with the Upper Lake the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, supposedly its custodian, has played no mean role in its progressive degradation. It has been attempting everything to improve its appearance by way of cosmetic changes but it has never formulated a project to block the nine drains that bring millions of litres of sewage into the Lake. The responsibility of maintaining a reasonable water quality is that of the Corporation and the obligation of supplying water to the consumers is also of the local body. That, in effect, results in the local body supplying poison to the citizens of the town who get the Lake waters from the Corporation pipe lines. Nobody seems to be bothered – neither the Municipal Corporation nor the state government – the losers in the process are the people. What is not even funny is that every instrument of the state is in place with all the necessary kinds of resources and yet it is the people who get the rawest of deals.

In addition, the farmers in its catchments that fall in the neighbouring district are not bothered about the effects of their chemical farming on the Lake. They merrily use chemical fertilisers and pesticides remanants of which flow into the Lake polluting it further. While the government has created an organic farming zone, it never considered the catchments of this Lake for converting into an organic farming zone. This was taken up years ago with the government by the Bhopal Citizens' Forum but to no avail. 

One wonders whether the authorities in the government or in the Corporation will take the findings of the local Pollution Control Board seriously enough and initiate remedial measure in double quick time. None can, however, be sure as we have observed utmost indifference to the water body despite claiming it as the identity of the city. The latest in this chain is the governments’ unshakable perch on the CEPT report that promised improved days (and water) for the Lake

 

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

Increasing pollution in the Upper Lake

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The other day the Times of India reported the increasing pollution in Bhopal’s Upper Lake. It is choking with discarded plastic bags, bottles and other non-biodegradable waste. The Boat Club area is visited by hordes of people and they thoughtlessly leave behind waste unmindful of the consequences on the very water they might be drinking.

The Times of India’s “I lead India” campaigners have decided to clean up the 2 km stretch along the Boat Club as things have assumed serious proportions. This, however, will not help unless measures are undertaken to prevent pollution and cleaning it up on a regular continuing basis.

Apart from the wastes that are deposited every day by the visitors the Lake receives more than 140 tonnes of solid wastes in direct or indirect form. Limnologists, who have studied the quality of the water of the Lake, have now opined that its consumption is risky for humans. With so much of waste being pumped into the Lake, they fear, its waters will lose potability in (not too distant) future. If that happened it would be a serious setback to water availability in Bhopal 40% people of which are dependent on it for their water. Already, the researchers have found that aquatic life of the Lake has seriously been affected and a decline in its flora and fauna has been noticed.

The Municipal Corporation, the custodian of the Lake, has failed to take care of it. Over the last few years it had initiated crores-worth of projects to stop the inflow of solid wastes from drains that empty into the Lake but with remarkable failure. It banned the plying of motorised boats in the Lake years ago but has failed to implement it. No wonder, motorised boats and the cruise boat ply in the Lake regularly with impunity. One could hardly ever come across a more worthless civic body.

The mounting accumulation of filth and pollutants in the Boat Club area is a gift to the people of Bhopal from the minister of urban administration with whom the local Tourism Corporation admirably collaborated. Much against the well-accepted environmental norms they have, together, literally campaigned to get more visitors to the Boat Club area and consequently more filth pollutants in the Lake. Though they claim they were trying to get more tourists but the efforts resulted in hordes of local visitors landing up regularly at the Lake front only to pollute it. The minister went out of his way to get a vintage steam locomotive installed near the Lake along with a model of a naval warship to attract visitors. One wonders as to why he didn’t get an air force plane and a vintage omnibus for the Lake-side decor. The Tourism Corporation even organised functions at the Boat Club to get hundreds of people to witness the “tamashas” they staged even though a surfeit of venues is available in the town for holding such jamborees using the fig leaf of creating awareness among people for conservation of the water body.

Besides, with encouragement from the minister the Tourism Corporation created a massive amusement facility, “sair sapata” at Prempura close to the Important Bird Area of the Lake unmindful of the consequences on the Lake . Predictably, most of the migratory species have since given up the Upper Lake for roosting threatening the Wetland’s Ramsar status. (Birdlife International should take a note of It)The Ramsar organisation recognises a wetland as a Ramsar site only if it provides favourable conditions for domestic and migratory water fowl which the Upper Lake now fails to do.

The local government has been indulging in doublespeak. While claiming concern for the Upper Lake it has practically shelved all efforts towards its conservation. Even the development and conservation plan prepared at its instance by the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad has been kept under wraps till the next elections. The local people should realise that the Upper Lake and the Bhoj Wetland is under serious threat. I have been constantly writing about it for the last ten years or so. But there has been no change in the official attitude. The Bhoj Wetland Project – a 5-year project that ran for 9 years up to 2004 – achieved precious little. The advent of the new government in 2004 did not make a difference and, in fact, later it enhanced threats to the Lake. It should now be realised that soon the water body as we know it may cease to exist. It cannot be business as usual any more. The need of the hour is to arrange to have people’s pressure exerted on the government for effective action for conservation of the water body.  http://bagchiblog.blogspot.com