Major tourism boost to Maharashtra's Lonar as govt plans to hold tourism festival every year, starting 2025

Mumbai: A major boost is being given to Lonar, a national geo-heritage site in a bid to promote tourism in Maharashtra.

The Lonar Crater or Lonar Lake, a Ramsar-site, is located in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra.

More than a dozen temples are located here which include the Daitya Sudan Temple, Vishnu Temple, Shiv Temple, Gomukhi Temple and so on.

As a first step, the Maharashtra government is planning to hold Lonar Tourism Festival, every year, starting 2025.

“To make people aware of its importance, the state tourism department will organize a Lonar Tourism Festival from this year,” said state tourism minister Shambhuraj Desai presiding over a meeting to promote Lonar.

Principal Secretary of the Tourism Department Atul Patne, Director of the Tourism Department Dr B N Patil, Managing Director of Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation Manoj Kumar Suryavanshi, Buldhana District Collector Kiran Patil attended the crucial meeting.

Various works like Lonar Lake conservation, preservation of temples in the vicinity, nature tourism, wildlife protection, development of neighbouring areas, creation of basic facilities are being undertaken.

The crater-lake was formed nearly 52,000 years ago when a meteorite slammed the Deccan Plateau. The meteorite weighed two million tonnes and was travelling at an estimated speed of 90,000 kmph. It created a hole which was 150 m deep and 1.8 km wide!

Scientists believe that the energy released during this event was equivalent to a six-megaton atom bomb explosion.

The collision led to the formation of one of the largest, most unique basalt impact craters in the world. It has a mean diameter of 1.2 km and is about 137 m below the crater rim. The meteor crater rim is about 1.8 km in diameter.

The Lonar site includes the lake as well as escarpments, which form the crater walls, and forested zones. The lake is high in salinity and alkalinity, as the lack of an outflow leads to a concentration of minerals as the lake water evaporates.

Certain microorganisms such as anaerobes, cyanobacteria, and phytoplankton survive in this harsh chemical environment.

Outside the lake, there is considerable diversity of plant and animal life, like springs which help feed the lake and provide a source of freshwater. Inhabiting the site are 160 species of birds including the vulnerable Asian woolly-neck (Ciconia episcopus) and common pochard (Aythya ferina), 46 species of reptiles, and 12 species of mammals including the iconic grey wolf (Canis lupus).

Both these sites are both threatened by household sewage, urban wastewater and unsustainable tourism.

The Smithsonian Institution, the United States Geological Survey, Geological Survey of India, the University of Sagar, and the Physical Research Laboratory have conducted extensive studies of the Lonar site. Biological nitrogen fixation was discovered in this lake in 2007.

A 2019 study, conducted by IIT Bombay found that the minerals, in the lake soil, are very similar to the minerals found in moon rocks brought back during the Apollo programme.