India News | Delhi LG Flags 'pathetic State' of Bhalswa Lake Maintenance by DJB, Wants Its Banks to Be Cleaned for Chhath Puja

New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) Delhi LG V K Saxena on Saturday directed the DDA to clean the banks of the Bhalswa lake within a week for Chhath Puja, while flagging the "pathetic state" of its maintenance by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), officials said.

The LG expressed ''shock'' at the fact that a water body, so critical to the environment and aesthetics of the national capital, had been "left to die" with its original 59 Ha. area getting squeezed to a mere 34 Ha. due to deposition of silt and garbage owing to inaction and neglect by agencies concerned, they said.

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The work of restoring and rejuvenating the lake had been handed over to the DJB by the DDA in May, 2019.

"However, owing to complete failure on part of the DJB to fulfil the required works, the DDA had only last month reassumed the task of the lake's upkeep," an official said.

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Saxena described the lake as an invaluable asset for Delhi and expressed "deep disappointment" at the ''sordid'' and ''pathetic'' state of maintenance and upkeep of the lake by DJB.

He directed the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to immediately undertake the cleaning of the banks of the lake in preparation for the forthcoming Chhath festival and instructed all stakeholder agencies to parallelly start work on the complete restoration and rejuvenation of the lake in a mission mode.

He issued specific directions to the DDA to complete the works of cleaning of the periphery of the lake for the benefit of people performing Chhath Puja within a week and asked for the boundary wall segregating the lake from the neighbouring Bhalswa Dairy on the western periphery of the lake within a month.

He directed that the visible islands of silt, sludge, dung and garbage encroaching the lake to be dredged and removed by December.

Another critical aspect of rejuvenation and restoration of the lake was construction of a Precast RCC Drain and pipeline for segregating the waste from the dairy and carrying the sewerage to the supplementary drain across the lake, the official said.

The contract for its construction was awarded by the DJB in January this year, with a completion period of four months. However, the same had yet not been completed. The LG asked for the works in this regard to be fully completed by December this year.

The LG was informed that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was working upon a project in Narela, where cow dung from the Bhalswa Dairy will be carried for bio methanation against payments to the dairy owners. He instructed that it should be completed at the earliest.

On an onsite inspection of the lake's periphery, the LG saw Boats and Floats owned by Delhi Tourism dumped on the jetty/docking site amidst filthy and stinking stagnant larvae-ridden water.

Water had also accumulated inside the boats. He pointed out that this was serving as breeding ground for various vector-borne diseases, including dengue, and issued instructions for the dump to be cleared and cleaned.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)