By Our Correspondent
Kaski, Feb. 8: Several tourists visiting the wondrous Fewa lake of Pokhara over the weekend were dumbfounded by the shrinking levels of water in the lake. Shocked upon seeing the lake drying up, a majority of visitors were found snapping pictures of the troubling sight.
Chief of Water Resources and Irrigation Division of Kaski Kiran Acharya said that the water level in the lake was manually lowered by a metre; hence, the area, which was once filled with water, had been converted to land. According to Acharya, it had been done to build the river dam.
Acharya said, “No large scale maintenance was carried out in the lake since 1978. In the last fiscal year, we had notified that we would maintain the dam in the years to come.”
“We decreased the water level for the maintenance of canal taken from the Fewa irrigation for dam maintenance,” he added. He also informed that the work could require drying up an additional metre of water in the lake.
The government has allocated Rs.10 million for the task.
A site engineer, who estimates the work to take up to a month informed, “Our initial thought was to reduce two metres of water. Since the work can be done only by submerging workers in water, we thought of decreasing it only by a metre. If required, we shall decrease additional 20-30 cm of water.”
The dam that had been raised in 1961 AD with Indian assistance of Rs. 1.5 million covering an area of 10 km sq was damaged in 1971. It now covers only 5.8 km sq.
Acharya reported that the development committee too carried out their jobs depending on this number.
Kiran Acharya assured everyone that they had lowered the level in order to strengthen the dam. With the completion of the maintenance work, the water level would be raised back to normal.