At a time when thousands of tons of garbage, sewage and drainage find its way into the Dal, Non Government Organization’s (NGO) have come to the rescue of the lake; Hope, Global Green Peace and Nelco are the three NGOs currently working simultaneously for the preservation of Dal and Nigeen Lake.

Zahoor Wani, a journalist, is working for Dal preservation and has worked with Hope, Green Kashmir, Global Green Peace and Center for Human Development. Hope has been working for preservation of Dal for the past ten years. “We have worked for solid waste management of Dal Lake, which comes from its residential and commercial areas,” said Wani. “We collected waste from house boats and the Dal’s open surface which is currently 12.5 sq km”.

Hope has engaged workers to collect this waste from the house boats, residential areas and restaurants of Dal to save it from degradation. “We have put collection sacks into the Dal were people gather the waste and workers take it to two points at Ashai Bagh and Boulevard,” said Wani. “From the collection points Municipality takes this waste to Achan for dumping purpose,”

According to Hope, the Dal dwellers have responded well to the garbage management process and they are co-operating. “Initially we had to face resistance from the people in Dal but when we made them aware they responded well,” said Wani. “Now we are quite successful with the campaign and people now are showing more responsible behavior,”

“We have covered around 704 house boats and around 110 mohalla of Dal, Nigeen and Boulevard area. We also had a survey conducted by IIT Rourki, which has a report on our campaign,” said Wani. In 2007 Global Green Peace worked on this project but it was stopped by government soon. The sources stated its poor performance as the reason for withdrawal.

... contd.