Revenue dept pulled up for delay in lake survey

'Lake development fund unutilised due to the depts slackness'

Officials of the Revenue department were pulled up for not collating data on the number of lakes in the district, at the KDP meeting, held here, on Thursday.

ZP President Pushpa Amarnath said that the department had failed to survey all lakes in the district, despite directions by the Lok Adalat. The delay in surveying the lakes in the district, allows more people to encroach the water bodies, she said.

“Following government directions, lakes had to surveyed, trenches had to be built and greening activities had to be taken up around the lakes. However, months after directions were issued, Revenue department does not have the details,” she said.

She said that despite writing to the Deputy Commissioner and Regional Commissioner regarding the number of lakes and extent of encroachment two months ago, officials were yet to furnish the necessary details.

Funds

Due to the slackness of the department, funds allotted under Lake Development Fund, to improve the conditions of water bodies, is not being used, she complained.

Officials of Minor Irrigation department said that they had cleared encroachment of 30 lakes, following Lok Adalat directions.

Works are in progress to construct trenches around the lakes. Representatives of Forest department said that out of the 30 lakes, greening activities has been taken up around six lakes.

Zilla Panchayat CEO P A Gopal, instructed various departments concerned with the works to co-ordinate, so that lake encroachments could be cleared.

E-governance

Pushpa said that following the launch of Karnataka MobileOne services, steps should be taken to provide services of local panchayats on mobile platforms. With more and more people using Android based smartphones, an App along the lines of MobileOne for local panchayats can be introduced, she said.