Sajidah Yousuf
Srinagar, Oct 09 : In the past one decade, the Lakes and Water-ways Development Authority (LAWDA) has not procured any new de-weeding machine to clean the Dal Lake, ironically the department has been using obsolete ‘piece of equipment’.
Top official of the department told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that, “Around in the past ten years, no new de-weeding machine has been procured by the LAWDA.”
“Previously, the de-weeding machines were procured in 2012 and these machines are of very high importance in cleaning the Dal as manual work is slow and uneconomical,” the official said.
The official further said that on an average the life of such machines are not more than fifteen years.
“Two de-weeding machines are functional from the past twenty years while two other functional machines have a few life left,” the official added.
“One of the main reasons for not purchasing the new machines is that people, whether local or foreign didn’t show much interest in tenders which were issued at global level,” the official said.
The LAWDA official also said, “In view of the uncertainty, the foreign investors’ participation has been poor.”
However, the official also said that under the new program, LAWDA would purchase new imported machines.
Stating the types of weeds that need to be wiped-out from the Lake, the official said, “In Dal Lake, almost 50 types of weeds are present and on a daily basis, around 200 tons of weeds are being extracted in active season.”
The LAWDA official further claimed that the department will extract all the Lily-pads permanently from the Dal Lake in the next three years which are spread from 0.5 square kilometres to six square kilometres now—(KNO)
