‘Encroachment in Bisalpur Dam catchment area’

Jaipur: A private contractor engaged for desilting the Bisalpur Dam has allegedly encroached on the dam's catchment area, carrying out permanent construction inside the restricted area in violation of norms.Environmentalists said the contract explicitly prohibits any alteration to the dam or its catchment zone. The contractor, however, levelled nearly 10 bighas of land inside the zone and was constructing permanent structures there, they said.
The development has been reported from the Negadiya region, where an old temple and a narrow footpath connecting nearby farms existed. That is where the contractor has allegedly dumped soil, widened the footpath into a road, and begun constructing two weighbridges. Green activist and lawyer Tapeshwar Singh said, "Google Images clearly indicate building activity in the dam's catchment area. The scope of work awarded clearly mentions that the contractor will restore the dam's capacity to 95.84 million cubic metres over 20 years without altering the salient features of the dam".A local villager, who requested not to be identified, said, "Once the weighbridges are ready and the road is widened, hundreds of trucks will move in every day, not only creating pollution but also disturbing the area's ecology".While the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project Corporation Ltd was unavailable for comment, Rajasthan's minister for water resources, Suresh Singh Rawat, said the contractor was permitted to construct weighbridges to weigh desilted material. He added, however, that the issue of the structures being located within the dam's catchment area would be examined. "If there is any kind of permanent construction in the catchment area, we will look into it," the minister said.The state govt engaged a private firm for desilting and dredging the Bisalpur Dam, which serves as a lifeline reservoir for drinking water supply to Ajmer, Jaipur and Tonk districts. The project aims to restore the dam's storage capacity, which declined to 1,029.9 million cubic metres from its original 1,095.8 million cubic metres in 2004."After operating for nearly 20 years without maintenance, the Bisalpur Dam was losing storage capacity, leading to water loss through overflow," said an official who did not wish to be identified. "Significant quantities of fresh water were lost due to reduced capacity, which is why the govt decided to undertake desilting and dredging through an experienced firm to reclaim lost storage capacity," he added.