Choking of the lake by walling it‘Official’ invasion of Futala’s catchment area ! - II

 

 

THE Futala (Telangkhedi) Lake is being walled to death -- almost in the same manner they killed their rivals by walling in the past: Build a wall around the person, and choke him to death ! This is exactly what is being done “officially” around the Futala Lake for a long time now -- without being questioned, without being accosted. And to be sure, this long wall is being constructed on the southern side of the Futala Lake -- just a few feet away from the water’s edge -- right in the catchment area, as if it is a retaining wall (a technical term) of the waterbody (to restrict its “undesirable” spread).

 

 

To make matters worse, agricultural activity, too, is going on in that catchment area -- in addition to the compensatory plantation on the southern slopes that actually acted like funnel-walls that poured millions of gallons of water into the lake everytime rains came for ages, since the lake was first designed more than a couple of hundred years ago. With the catchment area on the southern edge of the water-body so choked, the Futala Lake is bound to start starving for water. Already, on the western side, entities like agro-forestry nursery and roads have come up right in the catchment area. Thus water from the western funnel is not likely to fill into the lake. Now the evil design is in action in catchment area on the southern edge as well -- which is clearly visible in pictures. This is not permissible -- not just by legal law but also by moral law. In the first place, how can anybody grant a permission to anybody to construct a wall close to the water’s edge in the catchment area ? And, second, how can somebody be so brazen to start constructing a wall that would choke the lake ?

 

That is what has been happening for sometime now around the Futala Lake -- walling the lake and slowly but surely killing it. Many personalities of eminence in history were killed in this manner by evil powers. In these modern times, the Futala Lake appears slated to get killed by getting walled and join the ranks of history’s dead. The Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations for Maharashtra State (UDCPR) says clearly that “Any construction work near natural lakes should be 100 metres away from its High Flood Line (HFL)”. But this regulation does not seem to matter for some elements that are engaged in construction of a long wall just a few feet from the Futala Lake’s southern edge and a widespread agricultural activity right in the catchment area -- which is marked also by a Jack Well (whose vintage could be traced to at least a hundred years in the past).

 

Sanjay Tijare, a 61-year-old resident of the nearby locality, told ‘The Hitavada’ that he remembers the well ever since he started understanding things as a little child. Several other senior citizens insist that the Futala’s southern water-edge touched the slope up the road that skirts and curves up from the lake’s south-east corner to the Amravati Road. In the past few years, however, the water’s edge stays at least a few hundred feet away from the southern slopes. In essence, the Futala Lake is shrinking on the southern and western sides for quite some time -- thanks to different construction activities including a road system and wall and ... ! ‘The Hitavada’ tried to get in touch with Dr. Prakash Kadu, Associate Dean of Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV) for clarification on the issue, but found his phone out of coverage area.