Drying up of Singda dam water fallout of deforestation
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: January 13, 2023 -

IT'S quite dispiriting that after about 7-8 months of launching the 'Save Singda Movement', with an aim to replenish the forest cover and preserve the main source of water for the Singda Dam, one of the state's oldest multi-purpose projects is currently not in a position to ensure regular supply of water to a large section of the population.

Launch of the campaign signified that the government is aware about the importance of regenerating the forests in the catchment areas of the dam and do everything possible to keep the vital project in operational mode.

The 'Save Singda Movement' launched by minister Th Biswajit is an endeavour of the forest department to replenish the Singda river catchment area in coordination with stakeholders of different sectors.

Significance of the campaign could also be comprehended from the fact that the Singda project often ceases operation citing low water level, which was not the case some years back.

With the catchment areas increasingly wearing barren look in the recent past, it was obvious that the government had to intervene and convince communities settling in the dam's periphery or along the catchment area to lend support instead of living under the impression that impact of deforestation would be area-specific.

As fruition of the campaign, marked by mass plantation of tree saplings would take years, the task before the government should be towards reaching out to the local population not to cause further damage to the environment and bring everybody on board to make campaign as a mass movement.

For decades, the Singda project has been catering to the ever-increasing demand for potable water and to some extend provide irrigation water to the nearby paddy fields.

With over half the urban population in Imphal West district depending on the water supplied from the Singda project any disruption to the supply mechanism used to create serious inconveniences to the general population and evoke hue and cry from different sections.

However, at the juncture, the consumers have been enduring the intermittent cessation of water supply and meeting their daily requirements through purchase of water from private tankers.

Such a level of tolerance or resilience could be attributed to the public giving up the hope that blaming the department concerned wouldn't make any difference to the damage already caused to the environment.

That the threat from global warming is real could be gauged from a recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that there are only a dozen or so years left for the world's economies to change radically if the governments and its institutions aren't able to keep the effects of the global warming to manageable level.

Regardless of such menacing findings at the global level, there is still the hope for reversing the global warming trend if the local communities realise that ambitious goal would rest on their proactive involvement in the campaign.

As technical problems such as faulty valves and leakages had been quite common with Singda dam, ensuring regular supply of water from the project will ultimately be decided by increasing the forest cover in the dam's catchment area.