Nainital: The city of lake is in crisis. The tourists arriving in Nainital this summer are being welcomed to a drying up, which was the main attraction and source of livelihood of the vintage hill station in the Kumaon Himalayas in the state of Uttarakhand.
“It was happening for the past few years and now it has become such an eyesore,” says VikasVardhan who runs a tourists resort in the AyarPatta area. While the obvious reasons being forwarded are the lack of rainfall and snowfall but the rampant construction activity in the hills in the name of development has its bit.

The unplanned encouragement to tourism industry too has added to the misery of the lake. “Earlier the peak tourist season used to be either in the summers or around Dusshera. Some tourists came during winters to see the snowfall. This is not the present scenario, thousands and thousands of visitors are there every weekend.That demands a lot of water by the hotels and the resorts who are tapping the natural sources not allowing free flow to the eye-shaped lake,” says ShivamPande, who belongs to Kumaon but works in Delhi.
“When I visited my hometown this time during the month of May, to my astonishment the water level was so low that you could easily take a walk round the lake, which you would have not even imagined few years back. The water level was decreasing for past many years but this time the scene was gory,” added Pande. Clogging of water channels (drains) in the surrounding hills because of encroachment, leading to poor drainage is sited to be the main reason for the drying up of the lake.Landslides from the unstable hill slopes draining into the lake have also added to the misery of the water body as has inadequate sanitation facilities for the poor section of society, commuters and tourists.
The lake which is approximately 27 metredeep, now has just three metres of water left and nobody seems worried and everybody is busy with business as usual.
“Hopes are there that the lake would get refill during the monsoon, but we need to take some steps. Rain water harvesting by hotels, schools, colleges, government offices etc should be made mandatory. Changes can be brought and the lake can be saved in the same manner as the city has been saved from polythene bags, by a ban on them,” added Vardhan.
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