Protest imminent as Govt eyes Loktak clean-up drive
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: November 04, 2022 -

IN yet another bid to maintain its ecological balance and uphold cultural significance, the government has constituted an Empowered Committee in sync with the state cabinet's decision to demarcate the exact boundary of Loktak Lake and served notice to evict encroachers, including residential huts and fish farms, from the fresh water body.

As per an order issued by the Forest, Environment & Climate Change Department, demarcation of the 236.21 'square kilometres boundary of the lake would be decisive in securing a mega project from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

As such, the Committee has been tasked to identify illegally constructed houses, unauthorised fish farms and all activities within the buffer zone of the lake and do the needful for preventing further encroachment.

That the government is determined to make the drive result-oriented this time around could be comprehended from the committee consisting of the PHE minister as the chairman with ministers of fisheries and water resources, Loktak Development Authority (LDA) chairman, chief conservator of forests, additional DGP, law commissioner, secretaries of revenue and fisheries departments, DCs of Bishnupur, Thoubal, Kakching and Imphal West districts, DFOs of Thoubal, Churachandpur and Bishnupur, director (environment and climate change) and director (settlement and records) as the members.

Unlike in the past when eviction drives used to be spearheaded by the LDA with the police force providing security support, composition of the new committee underscores government's firm resolve to ensure that the latest initiative bears fruit, promptly address grievances of the affected parties and more importantly prevent possible public outrage.

The resistance put up when eviction drives were carried out in the past and the persistent demand for decommissioning of the Ithai barrage could be justified on the ground that none of the objectives namely flood management, hydropower production, irrigation and navigation, that the government promised prior to actual implementation of the Loktak hydro-electric power project has been fulfilled in the state.

Apart from allegation of police high-handedness levelled by the fishing community when huts built on the floating biomass for settlement purpose arid livelihood activities were dismantled and torched as part of sanitising the Loktak lake from all man-made structures, in 2019 the High Court of Manipur had decreed that no developmental project in the Loktak Lake should be planned or implemented without its prior consent.

Based on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the High Court had clamped restriction on implementation of new development projects and works by different government departments and Manipur State Wetlands Authority in and around Loktak Lake which is the largest freshwater lake in the north east.

Among others, petitioners of the case might be convinced that the state government wouldn't be able to come up with any satisfactory solution to the deteriorating condition of the water body, which is considered the abode of Manipuri culture and folklores.

Therefore, in view of the empowered committee set to survey and identify catchments of Loktak lake and areas covered by other water bodies including Pumlen Pat and rivers flowing into the lake, it is obvious that those adversely impacted by the government's initiative would raise a hue and cry, as had been experienced when similar drives were carried out earlier.