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Authorities confused over relocating Dal dwellers

SRINAGAR: The divisional administration in the Kashmir valley faces a difficult task as it explores new options to settle hundreds of dwellers of Srinagar’s picturesque Dal Lake, whose lives are interlinked with the lake’s ecosystem.

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Azhar Qadri
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, May 8

The divisional administration in the Kashmir valley faces a difficult task as it explores new options to settle hundreds of dwellers of Srinagar’s picturesque Dal Lake, whose lives are interlinked with the lake’s ecosystem.

The reluctance of Dal dwellers to shift to Rakh-e-Arth, a marshy patch on the outskirts of the city, has made the administration to explore new options which include land at Shalimar and Bagh-e-Chandpora, sources said.

The sources said the search for options had come as Dal dwellers were reluctant to shift to Rakh-e-Arth and insisted for identification of land “contiguous to Dal for their rehabilitation”, which would keep their livelihood intact and also ward off the “cultural shock” of the resettlement.

The human habitation around the Dal lake has been listed by various lake conservation reports as an obstacle in any preservation effort to save the lake. Located in the heart of the city, the lake is spread over 25.76 sq km with the break-up of 20.21 sq km as water and 5.55 sq km as land mass.

The lake is at the focus of continued conservation efforts that are hampered by official reluctance and also the refusal by the dwellers to shift to places away from the lake on which they depend for economic survival.

The state government has so far allotted more than 2,000 plots to Dal dwellers at Rakh-e-Arth as part of the programme to depopulate the lake and provide them alternative houses. The administration requires nearly 8,000 residential flats to rehabilitate Dal dwellers.

A high-level meeting chaired by Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Baseer Ahmad Khan, and attended by the Deputy Commissioners of Srinagar and Budgam district and also by vice-president of Lakes and Waterways Development Authority was held last week to explore new options.

It was decided that the land identified at Rakh-e-Arth would be “utilised for shifting of floating gardens so that the livelihood of the affected persons in kept intact”, the sources said. It was also decided to identify land at Shalimar for acquisition and also initiate acquisition process at Bagh-e-Chandpora village.

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