Lakes and Waterways Development Authority (LAWDA) has once again earned the ire of the State High Court for its failure to perform the duty assigned to it. In fact LAWDA has been under focus of the Court and Vigilance agencies for quite some time and cases of corruption, mismanagement of finances etc have been registered against it. This time the HC has charged LAWDA with failing to evict illegal encroachments in Dal Lake and its inability to demolish structures illegally and without authority raised from inside the Dal and other water bodies.
Actually, a Monitoring Committee of Dal lake under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary had been formed under the orders of the Court in which on the issue of strengthening the Enforcement Wing, a decision was taken that IGP Kashmir will keep an additional company consisting 45 to 50 police personnel at the disposal of LAWDA so that the existing manpower with it be strengthened to deal with violators. However, some objections were raised in Police Department for dearth of police personnel who are engaged in law and order duties. Now court today in this regard directed IGP Kashmir to issue a clear order indicating therein that as and when the LAWDA authorities call for the police personnel, they shall be made available to LAWDA immediately. This court order sets at rest the pretext of LAWDA that it has not adequate manpower to deal with critical situations of evicting illegal occupation of Government land. The court has taken a serious note of LAWDA’s failure and we hope that with the availability of police if and when needed illegal encroachments in the Dal will be cleared in a short time from now.
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