Kollam: Ashtamudi lake, the water body that has mesmerised poets and lyricists and offered livelihood for thousands of people for ages, hosts the President’s Trophy boat race today. Sadly, the lake is a ghost of its past, has turned into a waste dump, and the boats will speed past on a thick watery body which is an apology for lake water of yore. “The water quality of Ashtamudi is at its lowest ebb,” said an official with the district administration seeking anonymity. “It has become a sewage dumping yard over a period of time. Tankers carry the sewage in tankers flow them into drainages connected to the lake.”
Environmentalists allege that said several hospitals in the vicinity of the lake send their untreated waste into the lake. “The sewage including biomedical waste is flown to the lake either through canals or by dispersing it in tankers,” V.K. Madhusoodanan, an environmentalist who bagged the Environment Protection Award-2016, instituted by Kerala State Biodiversity Board, told DC.
The district administration and the boat race committee which has many people’s representative in it do little to salvage the lake and the race except for doling out promises of corrective measures. And that is quite expected of the committee, which built a permanent pavilion for VIPs to sit and watch the race by violating the CRZ norms and encroaching at least 30-40 feet of the lake near the water gateway.
