(IN) Keoladeo Park water crisis

[Guest guest]

Water crisis at Keoladeo National Park is hopefully going to end

soon. The Government has decided to bring in water through a

pipeline from Govardhan canal of Yamuna river. A sixteen kilometre

long pipeline will fetch around 350 mcft water yearly to the Park.

According to an estimate this park needs 500 mcft water yearly , so

atleast it will get 70 percent of its total requirement through this

project. Around 60 crores will be spent on this entire project and

hopefully this would help in restoring the fragile wetland

eco-system of the park.

This magnificent bird heaven came into being paradoxically as a duck

shooting preserve for Maharaja Suraj Mal of Bharatpur. He

transformed the shallow depression formed by the confluence of River

Gambhir and River Banganga into a reservoir by damming the rainwater

in monsoons. Flooding of water created shallow wetland ecosystem

causing it to be a perfect habitat for an astounding variety of

birds.

The park that was a hunting preserve for the Maharaja and the

British continued to be so till 1964, after which the hunting was

banned. A forestation policy of planting acacias was vigorously

followed. However, the ecosystem at the Park continues to be fragile

due to pressures of tourism and need for water from surrounding

villages. But, the environmentalists won the day in 1985 when UNESCO

listed it as World Heritage site and earlier in 1982 it was declared

as National Park. And, today the Park is recognized as the most

important breeding and feed grounds for the birds in the world. Some

species are still endangered and extinct especially the Siberian

cranes.

In late 2004 however, the Rajasthan government led by Vasundhara

Raje succumbed to pressure from farmers to prevent water from being

diverted to the sanctuary. The water supply to the park dropped

from 540,000,000 to 18,000,000 cubic feet (15,000,000 to 510,000

m³). The result was an ecological disaster with the marshlands

turning dry and inhospitable. Most of the birds flew off to

alternate avenues as far as Garhmukteshwar, Uttar Pradesh (90 km

form New Delhi) on the river Ganga for breeding. This resulted many

of the birds being hunted for their meat. The act was criticised by

leading environmentalists, leading to a Public Interest Litigation

being filed in court.

Now, from last three years the Park is facing a huge water crisis,

below normal rains from past few years have made the situation even

worse. The delay in the release of water would prove disastrous for

the bird habitat. Lets hope this project which is in pipeline

presently gets a concrete shape as soon as possible otherwise this

beautiful, famous avifauna sanctuary that sees thousands of rare and

highly endangered birds such as the Siberian Crane, Pelicans, ruddy

shelducks, gulls, northern shovelers, northern pintails, coots,

garganey, tufted ducks and common pochards will get ruined.