The Hindu : New Delhi News : Stir for water holds up traffic outside Keoladeo Park

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 08, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Stir for water holds up traffic outside Keoladeo Park

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, FEB. 7. Local stakeholders joined scores of wildlife lovers today in front of the main gate of the Keoladeo Ghana National Park on the Jaipur-Agra Road near Bharatpur to register their anguish over continued denial of flowing water to the world famous bird sanctuary.

The day's demonstration, perhaps the first in the Park's history for the kind of cause, held up the traffic on the busy highway between 12 noon and 1-30 p.m. Unlike in the past when local people had organised themselves demanding access for their cattle to the marshes of the 29 sq sanctuary for grazing, this time they were demanding water from the Panchana dam, for its conservation.

The local stakeholders were the rickshaw pullers, nature interpreters and hoteliers who earned a living from the tourism trade in the vicinity of this world heritage site. The protesters, who held up placards showing, "Keoladeo is on its death bed'', "Our economy is sinking'', included 100-odd school children from the area.

The traffic hold up attracted a police party, led by the Additional District Magistrate to the area. However, following assurance from Harsh Vardhan, general secretary of the Tourism and Wildlife Society of India, that the protest would remain peaceful, no arrests were made.

Today's demonstration was part of the programmes planned by the "Save K.N. Park Committee,'' which has petitioned to the Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court on the water needs of the Park. The CEC, after the first hearing on the issue in Delhi on January 31, has fixed February 21 for the Rajasthan Government to give a specific reply to it on the plans to make water available to the Park.

The protesters did not disturb the tourists visiting the Park and in turn were enthused by the support which came from them. "There is very little water left in the Park and one can see the birds are leaving the place. It is a sad sight,'' C. Mullins, British journalist, who is making a documentary on Keoladeo Park said on phone from Bharatpur.

Surprise additions to the disparate crowd of protesters in front of the all too familiar gate for the wildlife lovers included Vijay Bansal, the Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Bharatpur and Shiv Singh, the chairman of the Bharatpur Municipal Council. Those who addressed the gathering included Hoti Singh Lamba, a representative of the hoteliers and Krishna Kumar Gupta, honorary wildlife warden of the Park.

As such the political parties, both the ruling BJP and the main Opposition, Congress are yet to take a stand on the issue. The former ruling family of Bharatpur, whose scion Vishvendra Singh, is the BJP MP from the area, too has been silent.

Speaking from Bharatpur, the chairman of the Save K.N. Park Committee, Akilesh Kumar Sharma, said the group proposed to hold similar protests in front of the Collectors' offices in Karauli and Sawai Madhopur districts. "The narrow, parochial attitude of the local authorities and politicians in Karauli and Sawai Madhopur is the root cause of the problem,'' he alleged.

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