By Anil Sharma, IANS
Jaipur : The dried up lakes in Rajasthan’s famed Keoladeo National Park will soon be flush with water again and the cranes, egrets, spoonbills and other water birds seen again in thousands in their favourite winter ground in northern India.
The state government has completed work on a survey report for a permanent source of water to the Keoladeo park, located in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district, about 190 km from the national capital. The park, which gets its water through a network of dykes and small dams, has been facing an acute shortage of water due to drought in the last few years.
The Yamuna river flood water, which till now was going waste from the Goverdhan drain, will be brought to the park. A 16-km concrete pipeline would be laid at a cost of Rs.600 million to bring the water from the Goverdhan drain.
“We have done a survey of the project and a detailed project report would be forwarded to the state government for further action,” an official of the water resource department told IANS.
The cost for laying the pipeline is likely to be taken as a loan from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). The pipeline would be laid by the water resource department and its maintenance done by the forest department.
“About 350 million cubic feet (MCFT) of flood waters of the Yamuna river go to Uttar Pradesh through the Goverdhan drain. A 16-km-long pipe line would be laid to bring this water to the sanctuary,” the official said.
About three km of the pipeline would run through the sanctuary, which was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1985.
The 28.73 sq km-park, also known as the Ghana bird sanctuary, requires over 540 MCFT of water annually. The 350 MCFT water would certainly help in easing the crisis in a major way, the official said.
The park, which teems with migratory birds, wore a deserted look last year with very few birds coming here due to the scanty rainfall. This year some birds like spoon bills, egrets, cormorants, white ibis and cranes have been spotted.
The Maharaja of Bharatpur created the natural depression into a wetland in the 19th century.