Dal Lake and its surrounding areas to be declared eco-sensitive zone soon

A 10-member committee has been set up by the Jammu and Kashmir Government to declare Srinagar’s famous Dal Lake as an eco-sensitive zone (ESZ), following concerns about its shrinking size.

Reports suggest that encroachment and pollution has resulted in the shrinking of Dal Lake from its original area of 22 sq km to around 10 sq km, which was figured out after an assessment done by the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) in 2017. Referring to this status, the DCI also stated that they found the capacity of this popular lake has, in fact, shrunk by around 40 per cent, and that its water quality has also deteriorated.Additional Secretary of General Administrative Department (GAD) Subash Chibber said that the sanction has been, therefore, accorded to the constitution of a 10-member committee to ensure that the draft is finalised with regard to declaring the Dal Lake and its surrounding areas as an eco-sensitive zone.
He further added that the committee will also finalise the draft notification within a period of one month, and added that all facilities will be provided to the committee by the Housing and Urban Development Department.

As per DCI’s assessment, it has been found that intense pollution by solid wastes and untreated sewage that flows into the lake, clogging, and encroachments of water channels, have hampered the circulation and inflows into the lake, thereby leading to extensive growth of the weed water hyacinth, resulting in health hazards.
All these factors reduced the depth of the lake at many places, whereas continuing night soil discharge from 800 to 900 houseboats is also causing extreme pollution in the water body.