Farmers evicted in overgrown lake's $463m clean-up

SRINAGAR - Every day, amid the early morning mists that sit low over the water of Dal Lake, a remarkable piece of theatre is played out.

Emerging from the islands and the alleyways of reeds, men paddle traditional wooden boats to an area of the lake that is heavy with weeds.

There, using nets fixed atop willow branches, they haul the weeds into their boats. With their vessels partially submerged by the weight, they paddle away, to use their bounty as fertiliser for crops.

On Kashmir's Dal Lake, despite more than a decade of efforts to arrest its spread, the clogging, spinach-green algae appears to be everywhere.

This week the Indian Government announced £180 million ($463 million) to fund a new clean-up of the Dal and another lake, the Wular, one of the largest freshwater bodies in Asia. "This conservation effort is the first serious fully-funded effort," said the Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh.

The slow death of Dal Lake, which less than 30 years ago was at least double its size, is a story of tawdry neglect that has played out against the backdrop of Kashmir's separatist insurgency.

Once a favoured spot for both the elite of the British Raj and backpacking hippies who escaped the crushing heat of India's plains by relaxing on the lake's famous houseboats, the Dal is polluted with litter, and thousands of tonnes of sewage.

The increased nitrogen in the water gives rise to the algae and weeds which choke aquatic life.

Pushing off his wooden shikhara from a shoreline, boatman Lassa Dar gave a tour of his world. His paddle angled in the weed-filled water, he remembered the days when the water used to be much cleaner and people swam in it.

"The weeds have got much worse," he said. "It is all the run-off that enters the lake."

On the east of the lake boatmen were hauling out weeds on behalf of the local authorities. On the other side, however, the boatmen gathering the dark-green algae were farmers collecting it for their own use.

Dar, 62, who has been working as a boatman for 50 years, paddled to one of the lake's numerous floating gardens where, on a buoyant "field" made of reeds and composted weeds, the farmers raise a variety of crops.

"I grow tomatoes, melons, cucumbers and marrows," said Gulam Hassan,.

It is estimated that there are around 40,000 farmers such as Hassan living on islands dotted around the lake who make their living in this way.

As part of the plan for the Dal drawn up by the state and federal authorities, all will be forced to relocate to new homes in Srinagar. Many are angry about the plan, saying it will mean an end to their livelihoods.

In addition to moving residents, the two-year clean-up plan involves the building of new treatment works, a halt to deforestation and the purchase of heavy-duty de-weeding machines.

Houseboat owners will also be required to fit septic tanks.

- INDEPENDENT