Bandipora, June 6: Once famous for fish production, Asia’s largest freshwater lake, the Wular is fast losing this resource, courtesy the increasing scale of pollution due to mushroom growth of residential constructions and presence of army camps around the lake in this north Kashmir district.
 Fishermen of the area said the massive pollution has affected the fish production in the lake badly.
 “Before ten years the lake was crowded with fish. We would net fish of heavy weight every daily, but now many of the fishermen have to return empty handed after spending a day to find the fish,” said Muhammad Samad Dar.
 According to fishermen and experts here the lake alone was catering to more than 60 per cent of the demand for fish in the Valley some decades ago.
 Experts said the excreta coming out of the residential houses as well as the security camps along the Jhelum were directly emptying into the lake. “This has caused huge pollution in the lake and thus affecting the fish production,” they said.
 Experts said government over the years has failed to take necessary steps to prevent flow of sewage into the lake.
 Mansoor Ahmed, a fisheries scholar from Karnataka Fisheries University, presently working on a project ‘pollution and depletion of fish population in Wular lake’ said” “Inflow of sewage, siltation and encroachments have badly affected the fish yield in the lake.”
 “The animal carcasses, latrine outlets, etc have told upon the fish production,” he said.
 “More than sixty camps are located along the banks of Jhelum, besides the outlet of various Military camps and hotels in Srinagar city drains into the river which ultimately affects the aquatic life” an expert said.
 Interestingly, it is not only the fish which is under threat, the Nadru and Singara are also depleting due to pollution from the lake.
 According to a survey by the global environmental consultancy, Wetland International South Asia, the resources mapping trends of Wullar indicate a steep decline in its fish catch over the past 50 years.
 “The total catch as extrapolated from the catch records from the surveyed villages has declined from 10,544 to 1476 metric tons per annum,” it states.
 The survey states massive decrease of water level and its degradation has led to decline in economically native fish specie Schizotheorax and Nelumbo (Nadru) in the lake.
 Large quantities of sewage discharged from the Srinagar city and major towns flow into the lake resulting in increased euthrophication which has adverse impacts on the growth and development of the fisheries in general and sensitive species Schizotheorax in particular,” it states.
 “If government erects a filter bamboo at Shadipora or Sumbal we can enhance the fish population by halting the sources of pollution like polythene, animal carcasses” Mansoor said.
 “To prevent entrance of chemical from entering into the lake a big filtration plant can be set up in Hajin or Banyari,” he said.
 “Latrine outlets of Army camps and hotels have to be closed to save the fish and to save the lake” he added.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 6 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 6 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 7 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST