Water quality: No more paddling down the lake

Banned for two years, boating continued illegally in the Rawal Dam.

ISLAMABAD:

After almost two years of risking human lives, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has finally put an end to boating in Rawal Lake.

CDA Parks Directorate officials said a notification was issued to the Lake View Park management on Tuesday asking it to close the boating area.

Lake View Park Manager Muhammad Junaid Afzal confirmed he had received the order. “A steel fence will be put up to close access to the boating jetty of Rawal Lake from the Park’s side,” Afzal told The Express Tribune.

Boats were operating at the lake without any safety precautions. The park did not have any lifeguards and the boats were not equipped with life jackets. In fact, even a passenger capacity limit had not been imposed on the boats.

In 2010, the Supreme Court had ordered a ban on motorboats and water scooters in the Rawal Lake. The motorised boats were polluting water supplied by the lake for human consumption. Diesel emissions, leaked oil and the water-churning action of the motorised boats all threatened the quality of the lake’s drinking water.



The Supreme Court’s order did not extend to rowboats, but the CDA withdrew all boat licences right after the verdict.

However, since then, rowboats and paddleboats have operated illegally and with impunity, while completely ignoring risks to human safety.

The boatmen relied on their own boating experience and intuition. If that meant loading a dozen or more people on a shabby old boat for a few more rupees, they did not hesitate.

Not only did the CDA not have any way of dealing with a boating emergency, it did not have any way to catch the culprits.

“Without the licenses, there is no one to take responsibility of a boating accident,” Afzal said. “We cannot hold anyone accountable because we do not know the people who own and operate these boats.”

Photos of women sitting in a “paddle-cycle boat” at the Rawal Lake, with row boats operating in the background, published in the media recently, raised concerns among some citizens including Enver Baig, former senator and now a member of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

“Every Sunday, hundreds of people visit the Park for recreation,” Baig said. “These people including children and young mothers go for boat rides but in case of an emergency, there are no lifeguards, not even ambulances.”

Baig said the boats need to be checked regularly to ensure they are fit for recreational use.

The CDA used to have a mechanism for boat inspection, but that was also scratched after the 2010 Supreme Court verdict.



The Lake View Park administration had put up a fence in the past, but the local boat men broke it off and kept on rowing, while park staff was too intimidated to stop them.

“The park’s unarmed security guards cannot take on the local boatmen,” one Lake View Park official, requesting anonymity, said. “We need police cover to enforce the ban.”

The official said Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) never responded to requests from the park administration for a police operation against the boatmen.

He added that the new fence will be in place by Wednesday morning.

It remains to be seen whether rowboats will again resurface as they have done before, or if the CDA comes up with a system that ensures human safety and boat monitoring in the future.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2013.