The desilting of river Sal at Nuvem has raised eyebrows amongst the village bio-diversity management committee.
Photo Credits: Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
The Nuvem Bio-diversity Management Committee has taken strong exception to the manner in which trees and vegetation have been cleared from the banks of river Sal during the ongoing work of desilting of the river.
The committee has feared that with the trees and vegetation uprooted from the river banks, the protective bunds may just come down during the ensuing monsoons for want of protection.
Chairman of the Nuvem Bio-Diversity Management Committee, Jose Roque Andrade has dashed off letters to the Water Resources department officials with a plea to carry out the desilting of river Sal by taking proper care of the biodiversity.
In his letter, Andrade drew attention of the WRD officials that uprooting trees completely with the roots, on the side of the banks/bandhs of river Sal, will cause erosion and loss of biodiversity in the surrounding areas when conservation of biodiversity is today's slogan and every village has formed biodiversity management committees to preserve and document biodiversity.
He said the Water Resource department should have the objective, to also maintain the water table and
conserve the biodiversity. “Every farmer is conscious about loss of biodiversity, which effect the farmers and environment due to haphazard work carried out by Water Resource Department. When any job is proposed with respect to water bodies, like ponds, rivers. The concerned authority like WRD should take stakeholder like farmers/owners of the side properties into confidence, who have traditional knowledge of the river/pond and the surrounding area”, he stated in his letter, while making a fervent plea to the officials to ensure that there is no further damage to biodiversity.
He added: “About 20 years back the they had used a machine remove the mud/silt and the same shifted to some other place after uprooting the trees. Within two years the bandhs slipped off in the river due to erosion. The cause is uprooting trees on the side of the river bank. The same process is being followed by using a machine to carry out the desilting. There are no engineers supervising”.
