Srinagar, Apr 16: Kashmir’s legendary lakes are dying. And according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the death is not entirely natural — it is being administered, slowly and methodically, by institutional neglect, administrative apathy and a shocking absence of scientific rigour in conservation efforts that were, on paper at least, generously funded.
The CAG’s reports on Hokersar and Wular — two of the most ecologically significant water bodies in Jammu and Kashmir — make for deeply uncomfortable reading. They sketch a portrait of governance failure that is as comprehensive as it is damning, raising questions not merely about competence but about intent.
At Hokersar, the numbers tell their own grim story. “Around 2,528.10 kanals of lake area has been encroached upon for construction, plantations and agricultural activities. Despite issuance of notices, authorities were unable to ensure eviction of encroachers,” the CAG report states, in language that barely conceals its exasperation. The wetland, notified as far back as July 1945 and later declared a Conservation Reserve, has been surrendered piece by piece to encroachers while the authorities watched.
The ecological consequences of this surrender are now starkly visible in satellite data. “Between 2014 and 2020, the open water area decreased by seven per cent, while scrub area increased by 1,157 per cent, siltation by 104 per cent, river area by 103 per cent, built-up area by 102 per cent and aquatic vegetation by 42 per cent,” the report recorded, attributing the transformation to anthropogenic pressure and inadequate conservation. These are not gradual, natural changes. They are the statistical signature of an ecosystem collapsing under human pressure.
At the heart of the problem, the CAG identifies a planning vacuum. “No comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan had been prepared for the lake. Instead, the Wildlife Protection Department relied on annual plans which failed to address core issues such as changes in hydrological regimes, pollution and loss of biodiversity.” Annual plans, by their nature, are reactive. They address symptoms, not causes. Without a long-term, science-backed strategy, the lake was left to deteriorate between one budget cycle and the next.
The pollution crisis has been compounded by unchecked urbanisation in the lake’s catchment. Analysis of satellite imagery and Google Earth Pro data from 2005 to 2022 revealed rapid expansion of built-up areas in Haji Bagh, Soibug and HMT (Zainakot). “The lake continues to receive inflows from these areas, aggravating pollution levels,” the report noted, adding that research studies have indicated the disappearance of native aquatic species, invasion of non-native plants and declining dissolved oxygen levels due to nutrient loading.
Perhaps the most damaging finding concerns the fate of public money. Between 2018 and 2022, Rs 46.29 crore was spent on channel construction, dredging and slope protection. Yet the flood spill channel at PadshahiBagh, “designed to carry 17,000 cusecs of water, has seen its capacity reduced to 6,000 cusecs due to siltation and accumulation of debris.” Meanwhile, “key components such as hydraulic gates, silt retention basins and sewage treatment plants were not executed, affecting water regulation and quality.” Money was spent. Infrastructure was not built. The lake continued to suffer.
The CAG was equally scathing about the quality of conservation work that was carried out. “Expenditure on these works lacked scientific basis, with no vegetation mapping, bathymetric surveys or impact assessments conducted,” it observed. Crores were disbursed for de-weeding and dredging without any baseline data to measure against, any methodology to guide the work or any assessment to evaluate its impact. It was conservation in name only.
When confronted with the audit findings, the forest department offered little by way of reassurance — only that a policy to maintain the ecological character of wetlands was “under consideration” and that efforts were underway to remove unwanted vegetation. After years of documented decline, the response amounted to an acknowledgement that the authorities had yet to begin thinking seriously about the problem.
At Wular Lake, 35 kilometres from Srinagar and among the largest freshwater lakes in Asia, the CAG found a different but equally serious dimension of failure: institutional paralysis. “Due to non-constitution of monitoring bodies, the conservation and management programme of Wularlake had suffered as policy matters of Wular Conservation and Management Authority (WUCMA) could not be decided.” Without a functioning oversight structure, the conservation authority drifted, rudderless, while the lake aged around it.
This institutional vacuum carried a direct financial penalty. The failure to produce a detailed conservation plan resulted in J&K being denied central government funding for Wular’s rejuvenation — an act of administrative negligence that compounded ecological damage with fiscal loss at the same stroke.
The afforestation record at Wular reads like a catalogue of abandoned commitments. Under the 13th Finance Commission, against a target of 2,620 hectares, only 1,725 hectares were covered — a shortfall of 34 per cent. Under the CAPEX action plan for 2020-21, the failure was far more severe: “against target for afforestation of 1,870 hectares of land at a cost of Rs 8.53 Cr, Rs 2.42 Cr was spent (28 per cent) to cover 235 hectares (shortfall 87 per cent).” Between April 2016 and March 2020, no plantation was carried out in degraded forest areas at all. No physical verification was done to check whether earlier plantations had even survived.
The consequences were predictable and predicted. “Shortfall in achievement of targets resulted in insufficient afforestation in degraded forests resulting in increase of siltation in the lake by 201.54 hectares between 2016 and 2020 and consequently contributing to hastening ageing of the lake,” the CAG noted. Forests are a lake’s first line of defence against siltation. When they are neglected, the lake pays the price.
WUCMA’s defence, when it came, was extraordinary. The authority argued that much of the bare catchment was naturally dominated by shrub growth, that allied departments had supplemented its efforts, and that since 80 per cent of water enters the lake through the Jhelum river, attributing siltation to inadequate afforestation was unfair. The CAG dismissed each argument in turn. “The reply that WUCMA need not carry out afforestation plans contradicts the provision of afforestation activities under the CAPEX action plan. Further, it is pertinent to note that even the planned targets under the action plan could not be achieved, which was indicative of failure of implementation of the catchment conservation activity,” the report observed with pointed precision.
On dredging, the numbers are perhaps the most stark illustration of the gap between expenditure and outcome. “Although Rs 185.05 Cr was spent (2011-22) on dredging of lake, only 4.5 sq. km (17 per cent) of 27 sq km of severely silted area has been dredged as of March 2022.” What happened to the dredged material was, if anything, worse. “Dykes for dumping of dredged out material were not identified and dredged out material was dumped in the auxiliary basins of the lake which remained seasonally submerged.” The solution, in effect, became part of the problem.
Taken together, the CAG’s findings on both lakes reveal something more troubling than isolated administrative failures. They reveal a pattern — of targets set and abandoned, of funds spent without accountability, of bodies constituted on paper and paralysed in practice, of scientific recommendations ignored and ecological warnings unheeded. Kashmir’s water bodies have survived centuries of history. Whether they survive another decade of this calibre of stewardship is a question the CAG has now placed, with considerable force, before the administration — and before the public that depends on these waters for its ecology, its economy and its identity.
