After bringing Khushal Sar back to glory, cleaning of nearby Gilsar begins
After bringing Khushal Sar back to glory, cleaning of nearby Gilsar begins
Pokhribal-Gilsar route appears on tourism map
Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, June 16: After bringing back the Khushal Sar to its old glory, the Nigeen Lake Conservation Organization (NLCO) under the ‘Mission Ehsaas’ in collaboration with the administration has pushed the machines towards the Gilsar where the process of cleaning has been started.
The phase-wise cleaning of the water bodies in Srinagar has been taken up in collaboration with the administration, locals and the NLCO which is now cleaning the Gilsar Lake-currently in a bad shape.
Reclaiming Khushal Sar
The government avoided any commitment that it will restore the freshwater lake. Eventually, a social activist threw his hat in the ring, handheld the residents, living on its banks, and initiated the first civilian effort to retrieve the water body. Two months in the muck and the lake is visibly clear but authorities require chipping in to help move the mode, reports
Yawar Hussain
Residents overseeing the cleansing process of the Khushal Sar from Gil Kadal. Kl Image: Yawar Hussain
For years, the residents of a vast old city belt would chase politicians and officers for the restoration of the fresh waters of Khushal Sar if not the recovery of the encroached patches of its land. It was a perpetual stink that was part of the environs they lived in. Already struggling to manage the Dal lake and Brari Nambal lagoon in Srinagar and Wullar Lake in north Kashmir, nobody was in a position to address their concern.
Once dead, Khushal Sar starts breathing after extensive cleaning
Once dead, Khushal Sar starts breathing after extensive cleaning
20 trucks of trash lifted per day; locals pledge care
Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Apr 9: With a sustained cleaning drive of the Khushal Sar in Srinagar for the last more than a month now, the Lake has finally started breathing all over again with around 20 trucks of waste, that has been choking the lake for the last several years, lifted per day.
The cleaning drive was started more than a month ago by the Nigeen Lake Conservation Organization (NLCO) in support of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) and LAWDA which provided the required machinery to the workers.
Movement to restore abandoned lakes
Movement to restore abandoned lakes
Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
When Manzoor Ahmad Wangnoo a noted Kashmiri businessman and Chairman of Nigeen Lake Conservation Organization (NLCO) was asked during a TV show few months back to give his concluding remarks within 20 seconds on how to conserve Kashmir’s water-bodies especially lakes , he uttered a word “Ehsaas” . In his concluding remarks Manzoor Wangnoo said unless people have concern and sensibility towards protection and conservation of Kashmir’s water- bodies , they can’t at all be restored ? The very next day Mr Wangnoo visited Khushaal Sar and Gilsar lakes in Nowshera area of Srinagar’s old city . These two small lakes which were once known for its best fish and lotus stems (nadru) are now on the verge of death. Mr Wangnoo was infuriated to see the condition of the water-body as it has almost been choked now with trash , silt and other kinds of solid and liquid waste.
A papiermâché craftsman at work in Srinagar
| Photo Credit: NISSAR AHMAD
Militancy, a flood, the pandemic Kashmir s ancient art of papier-mâché is at its lowest ebb now, but there may be a ray of hope for the future
Sometime in the 12th century, Omar Khayyam, the Persian poet and astronomer, wrote these lines about love and longing: “Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring / The winter garment of repentance fling: The bird of time has but a little way / To fly and Lo! the bird is on the wing.”
Khayyam could never have imagined that his words would be depicted, nearly a millennium later, in a far-off place called Kashmir, on four-foot-high, intricately designed, papier-mâché vases. His poems continue to inspire the masters of papier-mâché art, who live in the narrow bylanes of Srinagar’s Zadibal-Alamgari Bazaar. They have, for centuries, striven to bring to life the literary works of poets, Iranian kings and Mughal emperors, adding their familiar, local